Coco Before Chanel

2009

PG-13

1h 50m

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

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1 Video

43 Images

Drama

History

Several years after leaving the orphanage, to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar. 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.

Directors

Anne Fontaine

Writers

Edmonde Charles-Roux(novel by)

Anne Fontaine(screenplay by)

Camille Fontaine(screenplay by)

Stars

Audrey Tautou

Benoît Poelvoorde

Alessandro Nivola

See production, box office & company info

Videos1

Trailer
Watch Coco Before Chanel | Official Trailer (2009)

Photos43

Top cast

Audrey Tautou

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel

Étienne Balsan

Arthur 'Boy' Capel

Adrienne Chanel

Émilienne d'Alençon

Alec, Jockey

Balsan Butler

Maurice de Nexon

Shop Boss

Jean, Groom

Bellowing Director

Actor in the Theater

Fat Man in the Theater

Bruno Abraham-Kremer

Tailor in Deauville

Lisa Cohen

Gabrielle Chanel, 10 Years Old

Inès Bessalem

Adrienne Chanel, 10 Years Old

Marie-Bénédicte Roy

Shop Client

Émilie Gavois-Kahn

Replacement Seamstress

Directors

Anne Fontaine

Writers

Edmonde Charles-Roux(novel by)

Anne Fontaine(screenplay by)

Camille Fontaine(screenplay by)

All cast & crew

Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews1

Review

Featured review

6/10

Audrey Tautou is actually quite impressive here as the legendary French designer, but the rest of this rather blandly photographed melodrama is really more about her love life than her career. She's born Gabrielle and having left the orphanage in which she was abandoned with sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain), takes a job as a seamstress and supplements that with some cabaret work. Clearly she has skill - at both, but it's her charms at the latter that interest the wealthy Baron 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.

Geronimo196710 Apr, 2024