In Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” Angelina Jolie plays Maxine, an American filmmaker swept into Paris Fashion Week—where the flash of the industry is constantly interrupted by something more intimate, more unsettling, and more personal. Vertical releases the film
Angelina Jolie may be known for gliding into glamorous settings, but in Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” she steps into Paris Fashion Week as an outsider—someone chasing a professional moment that quickly turns into a deeply personal one.
Jolie plays Maxine. “an American filmmaker who arrives in Paris during the frenzy of Fashion Week.” The assignment sounds like pure pageantry: craft a stunning opening for Fashion Week. But the title’s elegance doesn’t erase the turbulence that follows Maxine as her path intersects with a love story involving a familiar collaborator and with women “of different ages and cultural backgrounds— all fighting to take control of their own destinies.”.
As Maxine’s work pulls her into a new orbit. the official synopsis frames the heart of the film as something more private than the catwalk. Maxine “finds herself on a deeply personal journey of self-discovery” that forces her to face “the choices shaping her life.” In other words. the wardrobe and the spotlight are there—but they’re not the only thing driving the story.
Surrounding Jolie is an ensemble that keeps her world crowded and alive. “Couture” also stars Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, and Vincent Lindon. The cast forms a web around Maxine. including a model. a makeup artist. and her doctor—figures who hover close enough to make Fashion Week feel less like a spectacle and more like a pressure cooker.
The first trailer leans heavily into Jolie, and that focus seems deliberate. In a review from the Toronto International Film Festival. critic Richard Lawson wrote in his IndieWire review that Jolie “manages to bring some palpable life to the role. complicating her otherworldly magnetism with a dawning dread and sorrow.” Lawson also pointed to scenes with Garrel. describing Jolie as “particularly effective — and even funny” in moments with Garrel’s character. Maxine’s cinematographer and “possible love interest” with “understated sex appeal.”.
The review describes Jolie’s performance as intentional rather than effortless. saying she is “a master of flirting and seducing on camera. ” but that “she does not do so on autopilot.” Instead. Lawson says she “sharply illustrates the desperation and loneliness that are driving Maxine into the arms of her colleague. ” alongside “the sense that she may be saying goodbye to a certain facet of herself as she is whisked off into the realm of disease and treatment.”.
That sense of dual motion—toward spectacle, and then away from it—hangs over the premise itself: Maxine comes to Paris to shape an opening for Fashion Week, yet the story repeatedly redirects her attention to what she can’t outrun.
Vertical will release “Couture” in theaters on Friday, June 26. The first trailer is already out, giving audiences their clearest look yet at how Jolie’s presence brings both the sheen and the unease of the world she enters.
Angelina Jolie Couture Alice Winocour Paris Fashion Week Louis Garrel Ella Rumpf Garance Marillier Anyier Anei Vincent Lindon Vertical film trailer Toronto International Film Festival