Coco Before Chanel

Anne Fontaine’s nicely appointed biopic succeeds more as period piece than as drama. It charts the rise to success of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, from turn-of-the-century orphan to phenomenally successful dress designer and fashion icon in the 1930s. That’s only the first half of Chanel’s life, but there’s enough there for this to have been more than the half biopic it turns out to be. Audrey Tautou (Amèlie) seems an almost perfect choice for the title role—she’s got the right look, the proudly defiant deadpan of Chanel in her most iconic photographs. That cutely intense demeanor serves Tautou well for a good deal of the story as Coco raises herself from poverty on the streets to swanky dominance in the world of modern couture, but Tautou loses all conviction in the moments where the script pitches her character into bursts of more conventional romance. In a peculiar irony, the best acting and most distinctive characterizations come via the two most significant men in her life—her longtime lover/sugar daddy Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde) and the English businessman Arthur “Boy” Capel (Alessandro Nivola) with whom she has her one great romantic fling. Emmanuelle Devos breezes through as an ebullient actress who occasionally takes young Coco under her wing. Pageant Theatre. Rated PG-13