Toronto 2025 Review: COUTURE, Angelina Jolie Stars in Parisian Fashion Tale

Angelina Jolie, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, first made the trek across the pond last year to star in Pablo Larraín's Maria Callas biopic. She follows up Maria with another European production, a Paris-set haute couture tale that has her taking part in the Paris Fashion Week and performing in French.

Jolie hasn't had a great role in Hollywood in years, relegated to superhero slop like Eternals or limp blockbusters like Maleficent and its sequel. In Couture, Jolie has her best part in nearly two decades and once again establishes herself as a performer of sensitivity and insight.

In the sure hands of French director Alice Winocour, Jolie accesses autobiographical elements of her life with naked vulnerability, literally and figuratively. She was passionate about the project and produced it alongside French luminaries.

Unlike the stilted star vehicle last year, which had Jolie mimicking Maria Callas' accent and mannerisms, Couture is an ensemble piece with Jolie in naturalistic mode. Winocour tracks the intersecting lives of several women working in the Parisian high fashion scene, in the days leading up to a big fashion show.

She follows American filmmaker Maxine (Angelina Jolie), Sudanese model Ada (Anyier Anei) and French make-up artist Angèle (Ella Rumpf) to offer a sweeping perspective of the industry. Each principal is afforded a storyline as they move in and out of each other's lives, leading up to the brand launch.

Jolie's narrative is almost autobiographical and hits close to home. Maxine is directing a short film that will open the show and is busy shooting the film and doing post-production. Jolie is, of course, an accomplished director and excels in these portions.

More revealing is her primary conflict, which has her facing a cancer diagnosis and a double mastectomy, something Jolie had to undergo in real life. Maxine is a divorced single mother to a teenage daughter who feels really alone and helpless in a foreign country. The moment when she learns of her condition and calls her daughter to have a human connection is quite poignant.

There is a feeling that Jolie's anguish in this moment is being channeled from a real place. Jolie performs most of her scenes in French--her role as an American providing cover for any imperfections. Ultimately, the feeling Jolie brings to the part transcends language barriers.

Meanwhile, Ada is an 18-year-old Sudanese pharmacy student who has lied to her conservative father to come walk the runway at the launch and also star in Maxine's film. Her journey has her navigating the fashion scene as a young Black woman, unsure of the path she wants to pursue away from her war-torn country. Finally, we have Angèle striving to string make-up gigs together, but wanting to be an author and write about her insight into the industry.

Angèle is a stand-in for Winocour herself, as she was provided unprecedented access to the Chanel atelier and spoke to models, seamstresses, designers, and other workers, all of whom she represents in Couture. In some ways, it is the female version of a hangout film, especially Ada's portions as she finds communion with fellow models.

It is here that Winocour showcases her female gaze and mission as among the dozens of interactions between women, not one is about men. In any other film, the young women would discuss their romantic entanglements and search for a love interest. In Couture, they discuss money, career, hobbies, health, travel, and anything but men. It feels liberating and shatters a stereotype in one fell swoop. Couture is the rare film that fails the reverse Bechdel test--there is no scene with two men talking.

For a loosely planned slice-of-life film, Winocour expertly brings all her narrative strands together in the finale, which is the outdoor fashion show. A hurricane renders it dramatic, but with swelling music, slow motion, the faces of her protagonists and the voiceover of her author figure Angèle, Wincour brings each woman to an epiphany in a symphony of shared sisterhood.

Jolie, Anei and Rumpf are excellent, and surrounding Jolie are several stalwarts of French cinema. Vincent Lindon plays her doctor, while Louis Garrel plays her cinematographer, with whom she sleeps to find some intimacy. Lindon and Garrel bring their seasoned prowess, and Garrel and Jolie pack in some genuine sexual heat in their brief dalliance.

Couture is an engrossing backstage look at the high-stakes Paris fashion scene and the women who make it all happen. The peek behind the curtain aspect should drive audience interest, as should Jolie's best performance in years in a part worthy of her stature and talents.