Overview
The Paris Fashion Week–based drama stars Angelina Jolie as Maxine, an American filmmaker undergoing a major life change. The film struggles to settle on a single narrative focus, blending themes of Paris Fashion Week, cancer, and female solidarity without weaving them into a cohesive whole.
Narrative Tensions
Director Alice Winocour describes Couture as a movie about “the solidarity between women,” yet this aim remains only partially realized. The story drifts between multiple threads—fashion industry milieu, personal upheaval, and avant-garde Gothic elements—without delivering a unified message.
Character and Themes
Jolie’s Maxine arrives in Paris hoping to shoot the Gothic, bloody vampire feature she envisions. The film includes imagery of female vampires screaming in rage at the camera, which serves as a blunt illustration of feminine anger, though it sits uneasily within the broader ensemble of themes.
”The film exists in a nebulous limbo, not quite about Paris Fashion Week, nor quite about cancer.”
Critical Balance
While Couture attempts to synthesize several ideas about womanhood, solidarity, and creative ambition, it often fails to weave these threads into a single, compelling statement. The result is a film that feels like multiple stories stitched together without a singular direction.
Conclusion
Overall, Couture offers moments of strong mood and provocative imagery but loses cohesion amid its shifting themes and narrative strands.
“The Paris Fashion Week-based drama suffers from being unable to focus on which narrative it is trying to tell.”
Author’s Summary
Angelen Jolie stars in a stylistically ambitious but uneven drama that struggles to unify its themes of womanhood, solidarity, and artistic ambition into a cohesive whole.