Coco before Chanel

The big disappointment in this movie was that I didn't really enjoy looking at the clothes.

This defect is inherent in one of the good qualities of the movie -- it's about the period in Coco Chanel's life when she's looking at all the clothes around her and hating them and thinking she could do better.

But except for the last scene, where she's wearing a Chanel jacket and watching her models go down the runway, we don't really see any examples of her doing better -- the dress she designs for herself to replace the "feminine" one her "protector" has bought her seemed fairly pedestrian to me. The little black dress she designs to go dancing with her new lover is better, but we don't really see it very well.

Looking at the movie as either a moralist or a feminist, I think the script romanticises the demimondaine lifestyle, although I'm sure the writers would dispute that. The self-centered lord of the manor whose mistress she becomes is realistic enough at the beginning, but his conversion to supporter of her design career is completely unconvincing.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I hadn't yet seen any of the other candidates for the Best Costume Design Oscar, but I was rooting for Bright Star to win it anyway. This is part of the competition, and having seen it doesn't change that opinion any.

Related posts:

1. Bright Star
2. Tut and Tiffany’s
3. Repulsion