Very well executed

ridiculous rating

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

tho I will not deny the qualities as the rag to riches movie, it is not really true to make it a real bio pic CoCo never really had such hard times to get ahead- tho the collectors was a nice touch..she had lovers and used her sexuality from the start, so the "hard beginnings" were not that hard. omitted is the part when in the war times she was a mistress of a nazi officer and accused of collaboration. damaging her reputation in native France, recovered and ignored in the States othrewise quite a pleasant movie..p-ity it ignored real facts..not a fairy tale but a woman who succeeded all the means she had available and survived...a bit of truth would make this movie generally stronger and would not hurt Co cO's rise to success as a strong woman, a survivor at all costs, in the end a rich but lonely woman

Shirley Maclaine is wonderful as the late older version of Coco Chanel who sets out again to prove her art as one of the finest fashion designers of ladies' fashions and perfume in the world. Barbara Borovona is also wonderful as the younger version of Coco Chanel who rises despite tragedy, hardship, and success. In this film, there are flashbacks and wonderfully done to show Coco's rise from a seamstress assistant to her own visionary. Malcolm McDowell (he deserves knighthood or something) is fine as Coco's business partner. I don't recall the names of the other cast members but they were all fine. I could see why Coco Chanel succeeded even in a male dominated business field at the time of ladies' fashion. Coco understood women being one herself and how clothes should be expressed and comfortable as well. It should be the men who get to be comfortable, women should be too.

COCO CHANEL is a well-made film whose few flaws unfortunately detract from the enjoyment of what seems to be a rather firm biography of one of the great inventive minds of the 20th century. Though all publicity (and nominations for awards) focused on Shirley MacLaine who appears only periodically and for very brief amounts of time, the starts of the cast are a number of European actors, some strong, others, only medium strong. And while the real contribution Coco Chanel made to the world was her instatement of the equality of women, changing the manner in which they dressed (read fashionable) from corseted and plumaged mannequins to comfortably mobile and real personas, the writers of this version her life (Carla Giulia Casalini and James Carrington) elected to stress the women whose ability to adjust to being repeatedly deserted/used by men and turn this movie into a romance decorated by fashion. And even that idea, valid though it may be, is fairly well buried by a musical score that is so loud as to cover the dialogue - and the dialogue is in some nearly indecipherable language, a mixture of accents and lack of projection on the part of the actors who play more to the sets and costumes than to the audience. Christian Duguay directs, electing to begin his story with the unhappy childhood of Gabrielle/Coco and Adrienne Chanel, orphans laced in a Catholic sweatshop to make clothes. These episodes of childhood to old age are well transitioned by a black and white, old movie film transfer that does add to the feeling of history. The girls grow into young women, Coco (Barbora Bobulova) goes to live with Etienne Balsan (Sagamore Stévenin), falls in love, faces the fact that her time with Etienne will be transitory, moves on to Paris where she struggles to make a living making hats until Boy Capel (Olivier Sitruk) becomes her benefactor and lover. But Boy leaves for the Front as a soldier for the French army, leaving Coco in Deauville to set up shop with the aid of her sister Adrienne (Valentina Lodovin). The back and forth aspects of the story show Coco in the 1950s (as Shirley MacLaine) making her comeback with the aid of her faithful manager Marc Bouchier (Malcolm MacDowell) and the film ends in a standing ovation for the woman who not only survived but who changed the world of fashion and feminism forever. There are many other characters in the film who play important parts but they all look alike and have such heavy accents that keeping track of them is almost impossible. No subtitles are supplied: subtitles would enhance this film immeasurably! Fabrizio Lucci does wonders with the cinematic adaptation of the times frames of the piece, but composer Andrea Guerra (in a slushy replay of Tchaikovsky symphony themes) buries the lines of the actors and nearly destroys what is in essence a very good film. Grady Harp

Great film although a bit boring at the start. Evocative, bit predictable the way Boy was driving to his death - could have been less clichéd in the filming. The young Coco was quite magnificent and deserving of an award which I don't think she got but Shirley MacLaine got nominations. Why? In the midst of all those European actors and actresses Shirley MacLaine's accent stuck out like a sore thumb. She played Shirley Maclaine. She could have been Mrs Winterbotham or Meryl Streep's mother in Postcards. I know that they should have all spoken French and the film should have been subtitled but it wasn't and since everyone else spoke with a French or continental accent it was more fitting so why couldn't this great actress have tried to play a character accent and not an American in Paris?