COUTURE

In the frenzied days leading up to Paris Fashion Week, independent filmmaker Maxine Walker (Angelina Jolie) arrives in the city to direct a short film for a glamorous fashion house. When she receives a sudden breast cancer diagnosis, she is forced to juggle her intense workload with the weight of her health news. Her journey is entwined with the lives of several other women, including Ada (Anyier Anei) a young South Sudanese pharmacy student making her modelling debut, Angèle (Ella Rumpf) a French makeup artist who writes stories about the industry, and Christine (Garance Marillier) a talented seamstress working tirelessly on the show’s feature dress. The character development of these three women is limited in the 103 minute runtime, leaving their motivations and intentions mostly unknown. Maxine is the only one who is memorable. Jolie’s vulnerable portrayal feels very authentic, especially considering her real life history with the BRCA gene where doctors estimated she had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. This led to her preventative double mastectomy in 2013. While the conclusion of this film isn’t definitive, it still manages to feel hopeful. A story about women for women.