Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

The book’s title was Coco and Igor, but the movie’s elaborates: Chanel, Stravinsky. Mads Mikkelsen as the great Russian composer seems an inspired bit of casting, but actually it’s Anna Mouglalis as the French fashion designer who steals the show. Not that there’s all that much of a show to steal, unfortunately. You’d think that a true-enough tale of adulterous modernists would have some real artistic possibilities. But this one, adapted from Chris Greenhalgh’s book by him, Carlo De Boutiny and director Jan Kounen, is just dutifully dour and anticlimactic. It begins with the famously ballyhooed premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913 Paris. Where do you go from there? To the origin story of Chanel No. 5? Well, OK then. At least Mouglalis does her heavy lifting with a light touch. Also with Yelena Morozova as Stravinsky’s nobly suffering wife.