Juliette Binoche is Coco Chanel in Apple Drama – The Hollywood Reporter

Juliette Binoche and Emily Mortimer in ‘The New Look’.

AppleTV+

While drinking “another night of misery under German occupation,” as his friend puts it, Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) reflects on the days yet to come. “Someday this will all end, right?” he says. “And right now you have to ask yourself: when it is, will you be able to live with what you have done? Our decisions, believe me, are important.”

Apple TV+ The new look is presented as a chronicle of a decisive moment in French haute couture when, as the title haughtily informs us, “creation helped restore spirit and life to the world” after the Second World War. But it is less persuasive as an art or history lesson than as a bittersweet reflection on the election, illuminated through two rivals who travel wildly different paths throughout the era: Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche). .

The new lookThe initial appeal of is in its superficial pleasures, starting with a roster of characters that reads like a map of Rodeo Drive. It’s exciting to see Dior talk business with his friends Balenciaga and Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), or Chanel mock that Dior “doesn’t deserve their praise,” simply because we know these names will endure. And as befits a drama about aesthetes, The new look It is beautifully produced. No expense has been spared on lavish ballrooms, cozy workshops or exquisitely detailed gowns, and each episode culminates with the added extravagance of a cover of a Jack Antonoff-produced song by a famous artist: Florence’s “White Cliffs of Dover.” Welch, Lana “Blue Skies” by Del Rey.

But beyond the high-end trappings, creator Todd A. Kessler (FX’s Damages) presents Coco and Christian not as icons but simply as people who make painful and sometimes vile decisions. When we meet them in 1943, neither of them is very interested in getting involved in the war, although circumstances inevitably draw them in. Christian is still a nobody, designing ballgowns under the direction of Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich) for a Nazi clientele, even as he provides money. refuge and moral support for his Resistance fighter sister, Catherine (a heartbreaking Maisie Williams). Meanwhile, Coco, who had already built her reputation and fortune before the war, first turns to her Nazi connections in a desperate attempt to save her beloved captured French soldier nephew and then, increasingly, to enrich herself or save her own skin.

From the beginning, Coco and Christian’s arcs diverge so much that the two characters are only in the same room twice in ten-hour-long episodes. However, Kessler keeps his stories in conversation with each other through common themes, drawing intellectual and emotional power from the contrasts between his journeys. At one point we’re in a dingy cafe with Christian, where he commiserates with a stranger over news of the horrors of the camps to which his loved ones have been sent. The next, Coco and her young great-niece stroll carefree through a Swiss shopping district. The juxtaposition of their respective positions is frankly disturbing.

Of the twin portraits, Coco’s is the most easily readable, and The new look threads the complicated needle of explaining his motivations without excusing them. Binoche is magnetic, but has a cold-blooded, opportunistic charm. In the premiere, a handsome Nazi officer (Claes Bang) takes Coco “shopping” to an apartment confiscated from a wealthy Jewish family. For a second she seems worried, looking at photos of the previous occupants as she grimly reflects that “without wealth, without power, we are all replaceable.” She then sees a phone that she wants to pick up. Her eyes light up and any qualms he may have had about her completely dissipate. Later, when the Nazis no longer hold sway, Coco’s long complaints about how offended she is at being labeled a collaborationist (and how none of it was her fault anyway) explain the mechanics of her self-justification. .

In contrast, Christian’s psychology is more complex and more disturbing. Overcome with deep guilt for everything that happens to Catherine, he would surely be the first to accept that she is the true heroine of this story. But he’s the heart of the show: fragile and scared but fundamentally decent, in an intriguing break from the more vulgar and flashy types Mendelsohn tends to specialize in (even in Kessler’s Netflix drama). Blood line). His Christian seems perpetually primed for punishment, with a French-accented murmur of apology and an embarrassed expression. But no matter how powerfully Mendelsohn expresses Christian’s anguish, terror, or regret, the scripts offer considerably less insight into the thinking that allows him to channel all this emotion into his craft.

Indeed, although Christian and Lucien talk about “creation being the way forward” after the pain of war, both Christian’s drive and his process remain largely abstract. The new look. (For her part, Coco invests much more in commerce than in art). There are acknowledgments of the practical challenges he and other couturiers faced, such as the fabric shortage that led to the Théâtre de la Mode’s legendary exhibition of miniature dresses. But the drama offers little insight into how Christian relates to his work, or why his designs were so revolutionary. There is almost no analysis of the output of Dior and Chanel within a broader cultural context, beyond figures such as harper’s bazaar Editor Carmel Snow (Glenn Close) vaguely explains that “fashion needs a new leader.”

Maybe The new look It assumes that we don’t need that element. The first season ends with a moment of triumph for Christian when she launches the much-celebrated 1947 collection that gives the series its title, and one of apparent defeat for Coco, as it seems her secrets may finally catch up with her. However, as tempting as it may be to celebrate her comeuppance, we know full well that the truth will not ruin her name or her business, as she fears; In 2024, Chanel remains one of the most coveted luxury brands in the world, and its founder’s Nazi ties are only a dimly remembered trivia. Still, we are left with the feeling that this story is worth knowing, if not for Christian and Coco’s legacy, then at least for our own, as we consider our own decisions in our fraught times.