Coco Before Chanel

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Director: Anne Fontaine

Cast: Audrey Tautou, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola

Running time: 1:50

Rating: PG-13; sexual content and smoking

Where: Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett Ave., Tacoma; showtimes, 16-17 For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France’s Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, the woman who inspired dozens of biographies by changing the shape of 20th century fashion, not that much is known for sure about her formative years.

“Chanel lied all the time. She used to say, ‘I invented my life because I didn’t like my life,’” Anne Fontaine said, with Audrey Tautou adding, “Chanel always disguised the reality. It takes some cunning to know who Chanel really was.”

Although Chanel’s reticence may sound like a barrier to filmmakers, it stimulated co-writer and director Fontaine and star Tautou, who’ve combined to turn “Coco Before Chanel” into a superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

The most obvious credit goes to the strong, sure performance of Tautou, the star of “Amélie.” Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm.

The decision to focus “Coco” on the fashion designer’s formative years was made by Fontaine, who cast Tautou before the script was written. One of the most interesting of contemporary French directors, Fontaine’s earlier films, particularly “Dry Cleaning” and “How I Killed My Father,” brought empathy and tact to emotionally complex stories of troubled and troubling relationships.

Although “Coco Before Chanel” is much less edgy than those earlier films, it shares with them a sensitive interest in the destiny of society’s outsiders. And no one was more outside the system than Chanel, born poor in rural France and, after her mother died, abandoned by her father to be brought up in an orphanage run by nuns.

It’s in the nature of “Coco Before Chanel” that we have the advantage over its subject: We know Chanel’s career arc, her success at turning fashion almost inside out by creating clothes for women that allowed for movement and freedom. And the film uses that by letting us notice things, such as the unusual black and white habits of the Aubazine order that might have influenced the designer. After the orphanage years, we see Chanel around the turn of the century living with her sister Adrienne (a composite of Chanel’s sister and aunt).

Even in these early days, the key elements of Chanel’s personality – her sharp tongue and formidable will – are present and accounted for. A gift for survival was one of her strengths, though at the time neither she nor anyone else had any idea exactly what world she would be conquering.