When Angelina Jolie’s character descends on Paris in Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” she’s plunged into a very different environment than she’s used to. Despite the film‘s title and Jolie’s perpetually chic appearance, here she is playing an outsider in the fashion world: a filmmaker tasked with crafting a stunning opening to Fashion Week. The gig will inevitably see her crossing paths with all sorts of new people, but the real drama here is not about clothes or catwalks, as Jolie’s character’s new professional exploits are interrupted by some very human drama.
Per the film’s official synopsis, Jolie plays “Maxine, an American filmmaker who arrives in Paris during the frenzy of Fashion Week. Drawn into a love story with a familiar collaborator as her path intersects with women of different ages and cultural backgrounds — all fighting to take control of their own destinies — Maxine finds herself on a deeply personal journey of self-discovery that forces her to confront the choices shaping her life.”
The film also stars Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, and Vincent Lindon, all of whom swirl around each other as various characters within Maxine’s milieu, including a model, a makeup artist, and her doctor. But the film’s first trailer really puts the attention on Jolie, and that seems to be a smart bet.
Out of the Toronto International Film Festival, critic Richard Lawson wrote in his IndieWire review that Jolie “manages to bring some palpable life to the role, complicating her otherworldly magnetism with a dawning dread and sorrow. She’s particularly effective — and even funny — in scenes with Garrel, who plays Maxine’s cinematographer and possible love interest with understated sex appeal. Jolie is, of course, a master of flirting and seducing on camera, but she does not do so on autopilot. She sharply illustrates the desperation and loneliness that are driving Maxine into the arms of her colleague, the sense that she may be saying goodbye to a certain facet of herself as she is whisked off into the realm of disease and treatment.”
Vertical will release the film in theaters on Friday, June 26. Check out the first trailer for “Couture” below.
