Salt Lake Tribune Review

Before Coco Chanel, women's fashion was flowery and feathery adornments over restrictive corsets. But it was the societal restrictions of being a man's adornment that drove Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, according to director Anne Fontaine's lush biopic. Fontaine follows Coco, played by Audrey Tautou ("The Da Vinci Code"), from saloon singer to kept woman of a Paris tycoon (Benoît Poelvoorde) to lover of a British businessman (Alessandro Nivola). Along the way and after many cigarettes, Coco discovers her "less is more" fashion philosophy and her signature style. Fontaine luxuriates in the rich period costumes and sets of pre-World War I France, but it's Tautou's embrace of Chanel's simplicity -- through her carefully controlled performance -- that makes this drama so engaging.

-- Sean P. Means

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