There’s a quiet sense of artistic rage that lingers under the surface of Alice Winocour‘s delicate Couture, a small drama that looks at the intersecting lives of a trio of women in Paris, all working in one capacity or another around the fashion industry. Creation and the unexpected interruptions that can derail one’s own process appears as Winocour’s main objective in a feature that may prove monotonous to some and beautifully devastating to others.
The film centres itself predominantly around filmmaker Maxine Walker (Angelina Jolie, so sublime here in a performance that deserves to be remembered come award season), who arrives in France to direct a gothic-inspired short film that will serve as the visuals for the opening show of Paris Fashion Week. Maxine isn’t necessarily out of her depth in this environment, but as someone who views fashion as “necessary” and “useless” she’s not exactly used to the extravagance of the field, with her creative wheelhouse more suited to the lower-budgeted horror-inclined films she’s seemingly made herself a name in.
Despite her more independently-minded films, there’s an edge to Maxine’s work that clearly aligns itself with the rebellious nature of the fashion world, and it’s why she chooses young Ada (Anyier Anei), an 18-year-old South Sudanese pharmaceutical student, who is discovered by an agency and flown out to Paris, to headline the film, starring as the focal female vampire avenging violence. As the film takes shape and Maxine contends with the show directors as to a shared vision, she has her own personal journey to contend with, learning she has breast cancer and must undergo a mastectomy.
Intertwined with Maxine’s story are those of Ada and makeup artist/aspiring writer Angèle (Ella Rumpf). Ada has the most transformative trajectory across the film’s 106 minutes, as we see her navigate new territory as a model in a house of more experienced, oft-cutthroat-minded women, trying to find herself and if this profession is one she genuinely wants to pursue. Angèle serves as the film’s narrator of sorts, with her observations of those she encounters enhancing Couture‘s significance in detailing a story through – and for – the female perspective.
Anei is really quite gorgeous in her feature debut role, and Rumpf delivers lovely, understated work as she observes the movements of those around her, but Couture is truly Jolie’s film, with the actress turning in one of the most vulnerable and detailed performances of her career; this only further enhanced by the personal connection to such a story as Maxine’s, as both Jolie’s mother and grandmother died of cancer, as well as the actress undergoing a double mastectomy to prevent the risk of developing the disease herself. This texture adds a poignancy to Couture, with Winocour wisely avoiding Maxine’s definition as purely being about the disease.
Though there are phenomenal performances – and an amusing undercurrent of horror throughout (in addition to the vampiric nature of Maxine’s film, we see a clip from Neil Marshall’s stellar The Descent being played when Maxine shows the film to her cinematographer) – Couture can’t entirely escape the plodding nature of its structure and that its script isn’t always working in the best interest of its cast. That being said, none of it is enough to discredit the hypnotic nature of what Winocour delivers, with the film ultimately thriving in the face of its female strength and noting how much they sacrifice in order to survive in a world still dominated by men and their views.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Couture screened as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which ran between September 4th and 14th, 2025.
