Coco Chanel (2008)

Out of the public eye for almost 15 years, the renowned designer Coco Chanel (Shirley MacLaine) returns to the fashion world with a new collection. But the collection is a fiasco and she reflects on her early life and her difficult journey to success. Directed by Christian Duguay, the film is a polished if unexceptional affair. Too much time is spent on the men in her life (Olivier Sitruck, Sagamore Stevenin) who aren't very interesting when it should have been spent on Chanel whose life was too complex to fit in a 2 1/4 hour movie. As the younger Chanel, Barbora Bobulova is lovely and graceful but bearing little resemblance to the tough and cantankerous older Chanel as played by MacLaine. The script tends to the obvious as when a major character during a dramatic phone call may as well have "I'm going to die in the next 10 minutes!" tattooed on his forehead. Production values, notably the production design credited to Francesco Bronzi and Chantal Giuliani, are first rate. With Marine Delterme (in the film's best performance), Anny Duperey and Malcolm McDowell.