Angelina Jolie is back, and she’s prepared to show us her breasts in -quite sadly- the worst way imaginable. Her character has aggressive breast cancer. The cancer is discovered, thank goodness, in France, for the American health care system is pretty awful about, really, everything. And I’m pretty sure the character she plays isn’t covered.
Maxine Walker (Jolie) is a filmmaker who shows up for Fashion Week in Paris. Her cameraman is the same as the one employed by a local fashionista, which almost makes sense. And, sure, she’s there to shoot a movie starring one of the models in the runway show, but it still doesn’t make much sense as to why she’s in Paris. Is the producer the same one for both shows?
She has cancer. She’s just found out. File that away.
For the next 15 minutes, we’re going to look at Ada (Anyier Anei), a young Black model making her first appearance at Fashion Week.
File that away.
For this next segment, we’re going to focus on Angèle (Ella Rumpf), a makeup artist who dreams of selling her semi-biographical fiction to the world.
I dunno who edited this film, but the individual segments with each woman were so long they completely enveloped the film, even though the breast cancer was the only one that worked. It felt like we were supposed to vote on which character we wanted to follow: Will it be contestant #1, the glam queen with breast cancer? Will it be contestant #2, the makeup artist and aspiring novelist? Or will it be contestant #3, the new model with a figure like Jack Skellington?
The film decided -more-or-less- on option #1. I won’t say it abandoned the others completely, but it was clear as Couture progressed that neither secondary actress had 
a great story to tell. And, quite frankly. Maxine’s breast cancer was entirely compelling for its aggressive nature and how Maxine related to it. Otherwise, her character was kind of a dog, too.
Couture also spent an inordinate amount of time on one (1) dressmaker making one (1) dress, and not a great one at that. This seems par for the course; I’ve already seen three films about fashion this year and the only one in which the fashion grabbed my attention was the one which needed it the least (I Love Boosters).
I give Couture credit for illuminating breast cancer, a subject that is far more common in real life than in fiction, for obvious reason. The film handled the subject and the owner of the problem with maturity and depth. If, perhaps, anything else in the film had been compelling, this might have been a winning story to tell. As is, if I remember this film at all, I’m going to remember it for “Angeline Jolie has breast cancer” and there’s this stick figure model literally built like a young child’s drawing on a refrigerator. If those are compelling reasons for the masses to indulge in your film, I’m Yves Saint Laurent.
There once a filmmaker, Maxine
In Paris for the Fashion Week scene
Turns out, she has cancer
For which, there’s no answer
But she still looks great, isn’t that keen?
Rated R, 106 Minutes
Director: Alice Winocour
Writer: Alice Winocour
Genre: Pretending you can make a full drama out of breast cancer
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Breast cancer sufferers, I imagine
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “What is the point of all the other characters?”
