“Couture” makes its thematic tensions apparent immediately. Early in the film, which takes place in the lead up to a show during Paris Fashion Week, a seamstress works on the dress that will open the show, pinning red threads in a pattern across a mannequin. Later, Maxine (Angelina Jolie) – a filmmaker, and our protagonist – considers getting a double mastectomy, a surgeon drawing red lines in marker across her body to show her where his knife would cut.
This is not a subtle connection, but it is an interesting one about the intersection between the personal and the professional for all of the women in Alice Winocour’s film “Couture.” Set in the fashion and artistic industries, “Couture” is about a group of women for whom their bodies are essential to their work – their looks, health, and strength an integral part of their ability to satisfy their creative passions, whatever the cost may be.
But as interesting as those connections are on the surface, Winocour has trouble weaving the threads of her story together. “Couture” is split between the perspectives of multiple women, led by Jolie’s Maxine, an independent horror filmmaker who has been hired to create a short film to open a fashion show. Jolie delivers a lovely performance that’s the calling card of the film, dealing with subject matter that is clearly personal for her (she had a preventative double mastectomy in 2013). But the film’s other storylines have trouble keeping pace with her, resulting in an interesting film that feels a little spread thin.
In addition to Maxine, we meet Ada (Anyier Anei), an 18-year-old newly-minted model from South Sudan who’s thrown into the deep end of the harsher realities of life in the industry. We also meet Angèle (Ella Rumpf), a makeup artist with aspirations to be a writer, sharing her behind the scenes insights with the rest of the world.
These women, and others who are sprinkled throughout, run the gamut of the professional experience. One is making her debut, getting her sea legs under her while experiencing a brand new world. The other is established in one industry, but trying to make a switch. And the last – Maxine, whom we spend the most time with in the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis early in the film – is forced to make a decision much too early about whether or not her body can keep up with her professional output.
As always, Jolie is a mesmerizing screen presence, and her connection to the material pushes her performance over the edge. Before cancer comes into the picture, Maxine is dealing with a messy divorce, desperately trying to keep her connection with her teenage daughter alive and well while pushing her career forward at the same time. Jolie has a certain untouchability to her, a haughtiness, almost, that rages to the surface in professional settings where, even at this point in her career, she’s still forced to justify every creative decision to a group of men sitting around a table. But when she’s alone, particularly after the diagnoses, vulnerability begins to peek through her glossy exterior. When she tells Angèle about the cancer, she smiles through the delivery, the smile growing harder with each passing moment, as if she’s refusing to accept her own words.
Because Maxine’s storyline is so fleshed out, and Jolie’s performance so striking, it makes some of the other sections of the film feel a little meandering. As Ada, Anei is wildly compelling, but her relative inexperience on screen (this is her first movie role) makes her and some of the other models’ scenes feel almost documentary-like. That contributes to an almost unmoored feeling that persists through the film – a feeling that mirrors Ada’s feelings as she tries to find her place in Paris, but also sometimes feels like the movie can’t find its footing rather than the character.
Maxine and Ada represent opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, we have a woman who is very sure of her creative vision and what she wants, and on the other we have someone unsure where she fits in this world, or if it’s what she even wants in the first place. But both are still trapped by internal and external pressures. Ada and Maxine are constantly on the phone with family, trying to make room for both the professional and the personal. Maxine worries that her diagnosis will derail her career as she’s starting to reach a peak. Ada worries that her looks – she is one of the only dark-skinned Black models that we see – will single her out in a negative way. “These people,” she says to her mother on the phone in a heartbreaking moment. “It’s like they find me ugly.”
These connections are interesting, but the movie is a little too rambling to really nail down what they mean. The similarities between the threads on the mannequin and the red marker on Maxine’s body are clear, but the film skirts over what the actual message of that might be. Outside of Maxine’s storyline, there is just something a little too unfocused about “Couture” to be really poignant.
