By Dan Skip Allen

Angelina Jolie is an actress I’ve been watching now for decades. I first saw her in “Gia” and subsequently “Girl Interrupted,” where she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1999. She has done everything under the sun, from drama, “Original Sin”, to action, “Wanted”, and comedy, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” ever since then, including becoming a director of films herself with “Unbroken” and “In the Land of Blood and Honey”. 2024s “Maria” to me was the pinnacle of her career. She owned every scene she was in in that movie. She deserved her first Oscar for Best Actress, in my humble opinion. That film seemed like a long time ago as she’s sharing the spotlight in her new French language film “Couture”. 

Maxine Walker (Angelina Jolie) is a filmmaker who has made a horror film for Paris fashion week. She is hip deep at work when she gets a diagnosis of cancer from the doctor who she was referred to by her American doctor. Also, the film focuses on a young fashion designer (Garance Marillier), a model from Africa, the South Sudan (Anyeir Anei), and a make-up artist (Ella Rumpf). These stories all intersect with the confines of this important week for all of them. It could make or break some of their careers. All the while living their lives and dealing with real-life situations. Which is a distraction for some of them.

I’ve seen my share of movies revolving around fashion and so forth, but this one is more in-depth regarding Paris Fashion Week. It’s an important week for designers, models, and everyone else who is involved with it. All of the intersecting storylines show curious aspects of this world. The film from Jolie’s character helps set the tone and everything else rolls on from there. The music, dresses and all of the rest are very good aspects of the film. Combined with things like weather which you can’t predict, things can go wrong as well. You never know how a show will go off from year to year. That’s why it’s so important to make the best impression when you have the opportunity. 

This film shows various sides of the characters that a lot of people can relate to. As far as the cancer diagnosis, that’s something a lot of women go through in their lives. It takes a toll on the individual it is affecting on a personal level, but it also affects family members on a different level. Loved ones feel like they are helpless to do anything but the real thing. They just need to be there for their family member, mother, grandmother, sister, or aunt. As someone who has a sister dealing with a form of cancer, I can relate to feeling helpless, considering I’m 3000 miles away from her. Just talking with her is as important as anything I could do for her. Human contact via telephone or another way is a good way to go for others in my situation. This film deals with that in a good way.

I was connected to the other stories in the movie a bit more than the Jolie one, though. For instance, the new young model has financial difficulties back home. She is also bullied a bit for being the new girl on the fashion scene. Also, the young fashion designer wants to do a great job, and she feels the pressure of doing this job. A lot of people are counting on her. The other story featuring the make-up artist is also interesting to me because even though this is a job, she has stuff she’s dealing with that’s weighing on her mind. I cared about these people more because of their personal lives and what they had going on. The director, Alice Winocour, made me care about them because of her direction.

“Couture” dealt with a world I was familiar with through all of the movies I’ve seen about fashion and these kinds of things, such as “The Devil Wears Prada”, “Phantom Thread” and “Mrs Harris Goes To Paris”. What interested me, though, were the personal lives of those focused on in the story. Even though it was a French film with subtitles, I still felt a connection to these women and everything they had going on in their lives. The four actresses who played these characters, including Jolie, were engaging and kept me interested in their stories. That’s what I was most fascinated by while watching this film. The fashion world was cool to follow along with as well. It was the personal connections I got from the four characters, which made this movie worth watching for me.

🌟 🌟 🌟 stars