Couture Review
Couture (2025) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Alice Winocour and starring Angelina Jolie, Anyier Anei, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Grégoire Colin, Aurore Clément, Joana Preiss and Finnegan Oldfield.
Alice Winocour’s dramatic film, Couture, features Angelina Jolie as a filmmaker named Maxine Walker who comes to Paris during a fashion extravaganza and comes to terms with her mortality. Maxine grows increasingly more vulnerable the more the film proceeds and Jolie is fearless in one of her most impressive performances. Although Jolie is, technically, the star, the movie focuses on a lot of female model characters as well, making Jolie’s role feel secondary, at first, until the concluding moments re-enforce the importance of Maxine to the overall story the movie presents.
Maxine comes to Paris with a set of professional goals, but soon learns that her health may be deteriorating as a doctor demands her to take action regarding her current physical situation. It seems that Maxine could have breast cancer and she may need chemotherapy. When Maxine tells someone who comments on how she can dye her hair to look better, it’s a heartbreaking moment as Maxine must now let this woman know of her unfortunate predicament.
Vincent Lindon is exceptional as Dr. Laurent Hansen and the scenes between Jolie and Lindon are genuinely well done and moving as Jolie’s Maxine starts to see more clearly the fading possibilities of the future of her physical existence. Lindon’s straightforward turn is what we’ve come to expect from the dignified actor who excels here in just a few brief scenes.
One of the most touching scenes come when Maxine asks a man to go home with her and have sex with her. Maxine starts to feel physical pain, though, which gets in the way of her fulfilling that request. Another truly moving scene is when Maxine gets a hold of her daughter on the telephone and wants to tell her what’s going on regarding her health, but instead lets the daughter know she will be making changes regarding the amount of time she devotes to work and that she will spend more time with the daughter.
Perhaps, the most impressive characterization of the several models in the movie is the one from Kenya, Ada (Anyier Anei). She is coming into modeling with an optimistic outlook and things can seem overwhelming for her in many instances over the course of the picture. There’s a scene where Ada is dealing with financial pressures and it’s expertly acted by Anei who brings a genuine flair for the material to each and every sequence in which she appears, particularly an early one where she speaks with a young Ukrainian model who has been in the business for several years
There’s the requisite scene where a storm occurs as the models take their places in one of their given performances. Some of the modeling scenes seem more metaphorical than anything else and the director handles them well, especially when juxtaposing the young, often vibrant, lives of the models versus the life lived by the aging Maxine who has come to a crossroads in her life.
Couture works best when it focuses on Ada and Maxine individually rather than the secondary characters. Both Ada and Maxine have a spiritual journey of sorts to embark on. Ada is trying to find her place in the world while Maxine is trying to maintain her active role in the world as an artist and as a parent.
Jolie is emotionally resonant in the way she delivers her truly special performance. Jolie has never been more vulnerable on-screen and this feels like more of a personal project for her than anything else. Maxine yearns for affections she may have suppressed earlier in her life and the movie deals with her unfortunate dilemma in a precise and direct way that will leave the audience rooting for her survival against the odds.
Couture doesn’t have a closed ending. A lot of the story line remains ambiguous in terms of how it will resolve itself in the future. Angelina Jolie makes the most of her meaty role in the film even with her somewhat limited screen time. With her physical appearance not always present on-screen, one can still enjoy the French culture that the movie presents so well as we await the scenes of Maxine’s struggles and continued perseverance. The modeling scenes do feel realistic and add flair to the story’s dramatics.
Couture is a heartfelt look at the journey of two different types of artists and how their lives come full circle due to the events that occur in the picture. Angeline Jolie has never been more impressive than in some of her key scenes where she tries to work past her character’s challenges in this film. Though the movie doesn’t necessarily feel complete, Jolie has come full circle in her career and continues to age like fine wine. This is one of her best performances to date.
Rating: 7.5/10
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