Coco avant Chanel 2009

Michael Phillips, At the Movies: Coco Chanel was a lot more complicated than you'd guess from this thin slice of over-decorated cake. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: As picturesque period biopics with too many symmetrical compositions go, Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel is surprisingly intimate and nuanced. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's a special pleasure to watch this vibrant Coco taking in the world around her and turning it to her use, in her fashion. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The film, understandably, leaves you wanting more about the rest of the designer's life, but Coco Before Chanel is wisely focused on those years in which she became herself. Read more

Ruth Hessey, MovieTime, ABC Radio National: Coco Avant Chanel is a dull, superficial portrait of a brilliant woman. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Headstrong women might have been hard to find in turn-of-the-century Europe, but heroines like Tautou's are a dime a dozen in costume dramas, and there isn't enough material detailing what makes her Chanel a special case. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: We are used to seeing Tautou play the sweetheart. Here, she's anything but. Constantly smoking, dour, unsmiling, critical, she plays a character difficult to warm to but fascinating to watch. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: You know they're out of ideas when all Tautou does is walk and look around, then walk and look around some more. It's as if she's window-shopping for another movie. The one she's in isn't terrible. But it's not interesting, either. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie is most fascinating when it shows how Chanel communicated her enlightened sense of womanhood through her innovative designs, which in turn helped women feel differently about themselves. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: I wish Fontaine would follow up with a sequel: Coco After Chanel. Tautou's performance cries out for a second act. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Tautou's sophisticated portrayal won't allow viewers to dismiss Coco as kept. Coco's talents are too pronounced, her approach to intimacy, to life, too aware for that. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The film is unfailingly funny. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Coco Before Chanel examines the influences that made Chanel so different - and so irreplaceable - the way an observant fashion student might deconstruct an haute couture garment to understand how it's built. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Coco Before Chanel only starts to get interesting when she asserts her creative and financial freedom -- and that's right when the movie's about to end. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: We leave unsatisfied, but only because Fontaine and Tautou have left us wanting more of this unpossessable woman. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Although technically a biopic based on a nonfiction book by Edmonde Charles-Roux, Coco Before Chanel plays more like an engrossing, classy period piece. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: I missed the desperation that goaded the real Coco-not just the sulks that pass like rain showers across Tautou's prettiness but that brisk contempt for existing conditions which led Chanel, like any French revolutionary, to overturn them. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: In the end, even the style and structure of the film are tributes to the great designer herself -- clean, classic and unadorned. And completely unapologetic. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Visually attractive and moderately diverting. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A flat, airless tale of a sullen hooker who lucked out. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A movie that is tres chic even if it sometimes resembles those corsets Coco banished, a little stiff and confining. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: It would seem that Fontaine has a keener eye for the elements that made Chanel's style than she has an ear for dialogue. But she gets a splendid performance from Tautou. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: One can see where the story might be of great interest to fans and devotees of Chanel, but for casual viewers who have never seen her as more than the face behind an empire, there's too little in this movie to provide more than a casual diversion. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film loses some of its fascination when Coco is unmistakably launched on her career path. But that's when the story ends; this is titled Coco Before Chanel for a reason. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Coco Chanel is not the most lovable of heroines, but it's a strength of the film that director Anne Fontaine allows Tautou to make Coco as cold and ungiving as she does. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film, although sumptuously produced, is a staid and conventional account of her early years. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The thread connecting the ambitious girl to the acclaimed woman is enough to make us wish for a sequel titled Chanel No. 2. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Director Anne Fontaine is at her strongest when she's aiding and abetting Chanel's all-seeing gaze. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A more conventional movie would work this love triangle to maximum pathos. Fontaine sees it as simply part of the Chanel construct, and Tautou is completely in tune with her. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: It may be too respectful of the legend it seeks to illuminate. Read more

Karina Longworth, Time Out: Read more

Nina Caplan, Time Out: Fontaine's film is gorgeous, but its beauty is practical, almost textile, like a Chanel tweed. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The film, while scaled-down, is quite beautifully woven, like a classic Chanel tweed. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Variety: Tautou's perf is one of her finest to date, revealing her character's headstrong personality through smart delivery and a permanent but attractive pout. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Aiming to be a tale of self-creation, Fontaine's film more often plays as a dull romance, Chanel's role as mistress somehow worthy of noble celebration. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world. Read more