In Couture, high fashion has never been so boring Among the protagonists of Alice Winocour’s film are Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel

Couture is the film about the behind-the-scenes world of haute couture, produced by Angelina Jolie, who also stars in it. She’s not alone. The actress plays a director tasked with creating a film that matches the theme of the collection being presented, working alongside a newcomer model (Anyier Anei) from South Sudan on her first experience, and a make-up artist (Ella Rumpf) with aspirations of becoming a writer. However, there’s little to no fashion actually shown. And equally little of the lives and experiences of these characters during Milan Fashion Week. Their emotional worlds remain closed off. Superficial and limited to what’s shown to the viewers, who watch the trio’s storylines unfold in a narcotized state.

That Jolie chose to take part in the film written and directed by Alice Winocour (Proxima, Paris Memories) is understandable. The storyline of her Maxine Walker is strikingly close to her own: she, too, is a director, although not of such independent films as her character, and she has openly spoken for years about the risk of developing breast cancer. A private issue she publicly addressed when she revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy due to carrying a BRCA-1 gene mutation, which increases the risk of the disease from 10% to 87%. A condition that took both her mother and aunt prematurely, and for which Angelina Jolie chose the path of prevention, attempting to lower the chances of having to face it. A decision for which she was inexplicably criticized, but by choosing to invest in and participate in Couture, she seems to reaffirm the importance of knowing when to pause and learn to take care of oneself.

Fashion, introspection, and a missed opportunity

A positive message, but one delivered within a container and a story where time drags on and inspiration seems to fade quickly. A work that tries to strip away the frenzy of an event like fashion week, but ends up draining the depth and personal narrative structures of each protagonist. Resulting in a depiction of mere events, and nothing more. Maintaining a certain distance between the audience, the screen, and the characters, due to a lack of writing that unnecessarily stretches out the runtime and an overall vision that feels lethargic and sluggish. Things happen to the characters, they are pushed into certain situations, they have dreams that may or may not come true. But the structure of Couture is so fragile and precarious that the coincidences and hardships experienced by Maxine, Ada, and Angèle leave nothing behind except a cosmic void.

In this suspended moment that should mark a turning point for the protagonists, and does, while leaving the audience unmoved, Couture is a parenthesis where the ordinariness of existence, though embellished by haute couture, is joined by predictable dialogue and, above all, blandness. Nothing shines, everything blurs, including the viewer’s interest. Angelina Jolie, Ella Rumpf, and Anyier Anei fade into the background, washed out like the cinematography by André Chemetoff and blurred both in their character development and in the performances they’re forced to adapt. Of fashion, personality, and life changes, very little remains. You might as well move on to the next show.