Couture Review: Jolie At Her Most Vulnerable

Angelina Jolie stars as a film director at a crossroads in Couture, a well-meaning but overstuffed drama about the Paris fashion industry.

We find out just how much Maxine is contending with in the film’s first scene, through a clunkily written phone call that lays it all out. Alongside creative differences in her professional life, she’s going through a divorce, her relationship with her daughter is strained, and the doctor has found something concerning that later leads to a cancer diagnosis. As the filmmaker tries to manage these competing issues, her story intersects with those of model Ada (Anyier Anei), a Nairobi-based South Sudanese refugee, and makeup artist Angèle (Ella Rumpf), who is working on a novel inspired by her experience of the industry.

Jolie is disarmingly vulnerable as Maxine, whose diagnosis and proposed treatment echo the star’s own experiences with cancer that she so admirably shared with the public in 2013 and 2015. While the script is clumsy in its handling of the issue, her raw performance shines through; the A-lister hasn’t played a role this human in a long time. This is best demonstrated when Jolie shares the screen with Louis Garrel, playing Maxine’s regular cinematographer and on-off lover. They are convincing as two artists whose creative relationship has led to a profound mutual understanding beyond their work.

Elsewhere, things are less consistent. The Paris fashion bubble is well rendered, the city looks fabulous and the action behind the scenes captures the fashion world’s unglamourous side with believable authenticity. The dialogue between new girl Ada and her fellow models rings true – everything is ‘super chill’ and ‘good vibes’ and each sentence punctuated by ‘gurl’, the lexicon of an international generation that’s learned its English via TikTok – but the conflict that arises is contrived and the delivery lacking. Anei’s best work is with Rumpf, whose makeup artist-cum-writer is a grounded confidante in an otherwise intimidating environment.

It’s not clear Winocour recognises the most compelling elements of her own screenplay. Characters frequently discuss fate and whether or not we make our own luck, which she hammers home not just through Maxine’s illness and Ada’s backstory, but by including a Ukrainian character so underdeveloped it’s almost insulting and a big fat metaphoric force majeure in the final act. But her musings on determinism are far less engaging than Angèle’s story and the critique of the industry it represents, and the criminally underused Garance Millier’s seamstress; a wordless sequence in which she finishes the dress that will open the big show is the film’s great cinematic moment.

Another nice creative choice is the gothic organ piece from Anna von Hausswolff and Filip Leyman that plays over the film’s climax. Its haunting atmosphere is more aligned with Maxine’s usual work than the glitzy fashion world she’s found herself in, presenting a tonal contradiction that could have elevated this film were it explored in detail. It’s one of countless ideas Winocour stuffs into Couture, a meandering drama that offers only superficial insights, even if its heart is in the right place.

Couture was screened at TIFF on September 7, 2025 and will be screened at the San Sebastián Film Festival on September 21.