Coco Before Chanel (French: Coco avant Chanel) is a 2009 French film directed by Anne Fontaine, about the life of the famed French fashion designer Coco Chanel.
The film was released in April 2009 in France and went on to international release. As of November 30, 2009, it has grossed $34,913,844 worldwide.[1]
The film is currently in limited release by Sony Pictures Classics in the United States (L.A, Chicago and New York), but will be more widely released in the coming months
Several years after leaving the orphanage to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar both. She's both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing increasingly popular hats. When she falls in love with English businessman Arthur Capel further opportunities open up, though life becomes ever more complicated.
Anne Fontaine sticks to the remit in this biopic by ignoring the Chanel that most of us are familiar with, i.e. the world-leading brand name in world couture. Instead we get an idiosyncratic, occasionally dramatic but strangely lightweight account of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel's formative years as a cabaret act on the run. Audrey Tatou's compelling but unsympathetic Coco insinuates herself into the company of a moneyed aristocrat (Poelvoorde's Étienne Balsan). Fontaine's camera follows her as she see-saws between the hungry absorption of timeless country style in her surroundings and creative repulsion towards the glazed bourgeoisie whom she must suffer.
The only real issue with this film is that most of the its drama only comes from knowing who the protagonist goes on to become. There is next to no mention of Chanel's postwar success and influence. Instead we get the only real styling howler of the film - using contemporary models for a 'catwalk' show that's meant to be no later than the mid-1960s - and a text afterword of dubious use. It's competently, reverently assembled though.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/film/film-reviews/coco-avant-chanel/2009/06/24/1245522877268.html