The Design of “Couture” Disappoints

Couture (Alice Winocour, 2025) 2 out of 5 stars

Angelina Jolie is not to blame for the failings of Couture, the latest (and sadly, disappointing) feature from French writer/director Alice Winocour, whose previous films Proxima and Revoir Paris I very much enjoyed. Indeed, there is not enough of Jolie, her character just one of three who fill the screen. The resulting triptych delivers a muddled narrative, no one storyline developed enough to matter.

Jolie (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) plays Maxine Walker, a visual artist hired to direct a short film that will play at Paris Fashion Week. A mother in the middle of a divorce, she struggles to find time to speak with her daughter while in France, even as she argues with her husband over the phone about their separation’s legal details. To make matters worse, her doctor back home lets her know that the recent results from a biopsy require that she seek immediate attention on the ground in Paris.

This drama would be enough to hold our attention, especially given Jolie’s dramatic chops. Instead, Winocour introduces Ada (Anyier Anei), a model from South Sudan who is the star of Maxine’s film, and Angèle (Ella Rumpf, Novak), a makeup artist with aspirations to be a writer, whose voiceover reads out passages from her novel-in-progress. Because our attention is divided among each of the different protagonists, it’s hard to get a handle on any of them.

Winocour also never manages to establish meaningful tension—or elements of interest—within the world of fashion. The other models beyond Ada remain fairly vacuous caricatures intent on money, money, money (with a touch of lesbianism thrown in for good measure). Still, it’s fascinating to be reminded of how tall such professionals must be; it’s always a bit of a shock to see Ada next to Angèle, since when she is with her fellow mannequins she appears the same height, yet towers over everyone else.

Winocour hints at what might have been possible beyond Maxine’s story when she flirts with a discussion of capitalist exploitation (there’s a reason why the models think only of money), yet, once again, cuts away from the heart of the matter before we can fully engage. For Maxine, there’s a brief romance with her cinematographer (Louis Garrel, Godard Mon Amour) that goes nowhere, but at least that’s more plot development than Angèle is given.

It’s a shame, as watching someone cope with a devastating medical diagnosis should be compelling stuff. And it is, when we see it. The rest just feels like unnecessary filler.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.