The naturalism of Anne Fontaine's film would be at home in a novel by Dreiser. Her star Audrey Tautou, who could make lovability into a career, avoids any effort to make Coco Chanel nice, or soft, or particularly sympathetic.
Read the full review

This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.
Read the full review

A superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.
Read the full review

Coco is played by Audrey Tautou, and she's phenomenal--self-contained, tightly focused, sparing with her smiles, miserly with her joy, often guarded to the point of severity, yet giving off a grave radiance at every moment she's in front of the camera.
Read the full review

Not an expansive biopic but a fascinating snapshot of a pivotal chapter for Chanel, her formative fashionista years.
Read the full review

Coco Chanel is not the most lovable of heroines, but it's a strength of the film that director Anne Fontaine allows Tautou to make Coco as cold and ungiving as she does.
Read the full review

Tautou is a fascinating, unsmiling, petite presence with a severe brow and an androgynous appeal, so much so that I wish Alessandro Nivola (Junebug) were a more robust beau as Arthur ''Boy'' Capel, the love of Chanel's life.
Read the full review

The blossoming of her ambition, as much as her love life, drives the story forward, and turns Coco Before Chanel into a costume drama worthy of the name.
Read the full review

Spectacle, a love triangle, heritage settings, bravura acting, witty dialogue, a bittersweet finale: There's something for everyone in Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel.
Read the full review

I could have watched this woman rip a piece fabric and turn it into a dress all day. I haven’t seen a lot of that. I have seen movies about a woman caught between two men, as Chanel is here.
Read the full review