In the last decade, Angelina Jolie has appeared on screen less frequently. So when it is, and not in forgettable stores like “Eternals,” it's worth paying attention to. There seems to be a thoughtful intentionality to the roles she now chooses, almost as if this astonishingly famous woman wanted to tell us something vital about herself, offering clues to her understandably secretive personal life.
Take 2015’s “By the Sea,” which she wrote and directed. Coincidentally or not, that painful study of marital dissolution, co-starring Jolie's then-husband Brad Pitt, intersected with the couple's real-life breakup, not to mention Jolie's grief over the death of her mother, Marcheline Bertrand. Two years ago, Jolie played a version of the elusive and emotionally closed-off opera singer Maria Callas in “Maria.” The conception of the role, marked by a bleak vision of the suffocating alienation of stardom, was something Jolie clearly understood. Cinephiles should be careful not to include too much autobiography in an actor's creative decisions, but Jolie makes such speculation tempting, adding additional layers of drama to her films.
The moving “Couture” feels equally close to her heart, as it depicts a filmmaker whose life is cut short by a cancer diagnosis, a reality Jolie knows all too well. In 2013, she underwent a preventive double mastectomy for fear of her chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer. (Bertrand died of cancer in 2007.) Knowledge of Jolie's circumstances will inform the viewer's reaction to her wounded and resilient performance, but our inherent sympathies can only carry French writer-director Alice Winocour's ensemble piece so far.
Jolie plays Maxine, an American independent director hired to create a splashy opening film for Paris Fashion Week. Recently arrived in the City of Light, she only has a few days to put together the short, assisted by her trusted cinematographer Anton (Louis Garrel). As we gather from the phone calls Maxine makes at home, she, too, is going through a bitter divorce and is having trouble connecting with her indifferent teenage daughter. At least this job in Paris will shore up her finances and prepare her for the feature film she's wanted to make for years.
At that moment, however, Maxine's future is rewritten. A French doctor (Vincent London) tells her that she has breast cancer and needs a double mastectomy immediately. Maybe he can finish the Fashion Week movie, but his passion project must wait. An artist and mother who has spent her adulthood in constant motion will have to learn what it means to stop everything and stay still.
The film's title would seem to be a reference to the setting of the story, but in French, “coutures” can also mean “stitches,” and in fact, Winocour ties together three thematically linked story threads. While Maxine struggles with her cancer diagnosis, an inexperienced model from South Sudan named Ada (Anyier Anei) works at Fashion Week so she can send money to her family. (Ada has no interest in modeling and hopes to become a pharmacist.) Meanwhile, a makeup artist, Angèle (Ella Rumpf), longs to be an author, although she can't get anyone interested in her writing. Each becomes part of the fabric of Fashion Week, but their disparate issues fall far short of the personal importance of the glitzy event.
Winocour has often made films about women who balance their public and private lives. In 2019's “Proxima,” Eva Green played an astronaut who missed her young daughter. In 2022's “Paris Memories,” Virginie Efira played a performer recovering from the shock of surviving a terrorist attack. Winocour shows us the intimate and vulnerable spaces within her characters that outsiders do not have access to.
The three protagonists of “Couture” rarely interact with each other, but these meaningful exchanges argue that, amid the mad din of the everyday, a brief, unguarded moment with a stranger can be deeply restorative. Unfortunately, the juggling of the stories ends up being more schematic than illuminating. Angèle's narrative never catches fire, and while Anei is striking as Ada, that section of the film feels a little condescending, reducing this immigrant story to another forced salute to perseverance.
This leaves Jolie as the film's magnetic center, with Maxine drifting in despair as she ponders what to do. Her doctor insists that the surgery can't wait, but putting her ambitions on hold means losing a part of herself—a different kind of death sentence than the one she faces now.
The character is supported, but Jolie takes over through her quietly broken expression. As she's gotten older, the Oscar winner has grown more comfortable doing less in her performances, allowing her to have a fragile serenity that's belied by the angst and anxiety churning in the background. It's not just our recognition of the real-life parallels that make Jolie so moving in “Couture,” but that ineffable star power she has possessed for so long. In a story about potential tragedy, the saddest thing is that Winocour's film can't match the effortless mastery of its protagonist.
'haute couture'
In French and English, with subtitles.
Classified: R, for language, some sexuality, nudity and brief bloody violence.
Execution time: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Playing: It premieres on Friday, June 26 in limited release.
