Reviews
Time Out
Nina Caplan
"Anne Fontaine’s film has two interests: clothes and Audrey Tautou. The outfits are purposefully terrible: Coco’s early homemade monstrosities may have been original, but they didn’t have much else over the corseted excesses of the Edwardian era. But Tautou is wonderful – a black-eyed urchin so sullen and furious you forget how beautiful she is until she smiles."
29/07/2009
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The Times
Wendy Ide
"Rather staid in its approach, this film is nowhere near as fascinating and unpredictable as its subject. There are a couple of groaningly corny moments, such as a montage of furious snipping and sewing that follows the death of Chanel’s lover Capel — we get it, she channelled her pain into pattern cutting. But Tautou’s performance brings class to an otherwise conventional film."
31/07/2009
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The Observer
Phillip French
"It's a handsomely designed film, tasteful, reserved, rather dull, that leads up to Coco opening her first shops, followed by a dazzling epilogue set in the 30s in which a succession of stunning models descend a spiral staircase lined with mirrors."
08/02/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
David Gritten
"A single actor’s screen presence can go a long way to redeeming an average film. Audrey Tautou’s star turn as the legendary fashion designer in Coco Before Chanel proves the point eloquently."
31/07/2009
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Empire Magazine
Liz Beardsworth
"More a snapshot of a moment than conventional biography, and while less complex than it might want to be, still a quietly thoughtful look at one of the 20th century’s most influential characters."
03/08/2009
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
"Born into a Stella Artois commercial at an early age (gold-rinsed rural retreat hazy with peasant to-ing and fro-ing), she started singing and dancing with her sister (Marie Gillain) in taverns. She hitched a relationship with a rich landed gent (Benoît Poelvoorde), then romanced a dashing Englishman (Alessandro Nivola), then took her hat-designing hobby into the sartorial stratosphere. Anne Fontaine, actress turned director, makes this all go watchably, though a little predictably too."
29/07/2009
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
"There is something very unhurried and even a teeny bit sluggish about the pace of all this. But it certainly gives Tautou the chance to show that she can carry off a big role in a big movie, and portray a complex, creative personality. This is a world away from Amélie's simpering ingenue. It is a cool, unshowy performance, probably not histrionic enough to get a prize, as Cotillard's Piaf did."
31/07/2009
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"Anne Fontaine's biopic of a woman who would become the grande dame of 20th-century couture looks very beautiful, and Audrey Tautou in the title role retains a cool mystique. Yet, unlike her famous designs, this lacks structure, texture and interest."
31/07/2009
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The Evening Standard
Andrew O'Hagain
"We know that Coco Chanel, in what many people call real life, was a tough and ruthless little bird: she basically dumped her past, paid off her brothers to go away and shush, was merciless in her relationships with people who might help her on her way, and was terrified at some poor, sad level of herself that she might be found out. Very little of that comes out in this film, which chooses to play Chanel’s complexity as eccentricity."
31/07/2009
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The Sunday Times
Cosmo Landesman
"Coco Before Chanel assumes that because women like her clothes, they will be interested in the woman who made them. Unfortunately, Fontaine has taken all the interesting, difficult bits out of her subject — Chanel was a notorious liar and a bisexual who didn’t like gays — and made her into a bland and respectable role model. You would think a likeable actress such as Tautou would make us warm to our heroine. True, with her chic, gamine style, she has the perfect look for the role, but her Coco remains a cold, distant and unattractive figure."
08/02/2009
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