Coco Before Chanel

Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde). His name and association opens many doors for this aspiring woman but she tends to look upon him more, to his increasing chagrin, like a brother as she takes a shine to visiting British coal millionaire Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola) who agrees to fund her first millinery enterprise. Like so many of these rags-to-riches biopics, we spend way too long on the childhood and family dynamic before almost accidentally ending up at the how she got her break stuff. We hardly build at all on just how she became the woman she was. Those elements are sparingly portrayed and rushed leaving us with large parts of this drama delivering more of a Merchant Ivory style love triangle, peppered with some "House of Eliot" that has more of the soap than the salon to it. That said, Tautou rarely puts a foot wrong and does go some way to convince - despite the over scripting and underwhelming screenplay, and there's an hint of chemistry with Nivola too. It's fine, but sadly - nothing more, and it does little justice to Chanel as a woman or a brand.