Couture Review – Angelina Jolie’s spunky personal role adds depth to fashion drama | film

AThis film’s star and producer, Angelina Jolie, shows honesty and courage in tackling a story that closely mirrors her own experience having a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer. Unfortunately, the film itself feels disingenuous and shallow, insisting with a bland and strangely humorless confidence on the glamorous importance of the fashion world in which it is set.

Maxine, Julie’s character, is an American independent filmmaker who has just arrived in Paris, having been chosen to direct the opening short film for a very prestigious fashion show. Her character is first among equals in the cast. Anyier Anei is Ada, an emerging model from South Sudan who will be the star of the show; Ella Rumpf plays makeup artist and would-be writer Angel, trying to turn her experiences into a provocative fictional memoir; Louis Garrel smiles and grimaces as only he can as Anton, Maxine’s first assistant director; And Vincent Lyndon is the rumpled, concerned Dr. Hansen, who has the unhappy task of telling Maxine that his American colleague has relayed to him the results of her recent biopsy, and that she has breast cancer. (He watches her sadly as she walks away from the sidewalk from his high window after their consultation, while she smokes a cigarette thoughtfully.)

Maxine is shocked when she receives the news, and realizes that her new film planned after the Paris event may have to be postponed, or even abandoned altogether. Jolie does her best in this wrenching screenplay, but the screenplay by writer-director Alice Winokur is often downright lame. Ada supposedly injured her ankle the night before the big show, while hanging out with her model friends at the hotel, showing off runway walking styles in high heels. Will she be able to hide this injury the way Maxine initially tries to deny her diagnosis? It is not clear. This scheme doesn’t really come with anything. Fashion in movies can often seem precious, and unfortunately this is no exception. However, Jolie’s star quality is always there.