Coco did it her way - and women owe her

This is a rags-to-riches story that stops before we get to the riches.

"Coco Before Chanel" deals with the life of an orphan named Gabrielle Chanel who became the most influential fashion icon of the 20th century, a champion of women's liberation and a jet-set icon. As the title suggests, it is the before, not the after.

The film, directed by Anne Fontaine, is a lovely period picture postcard, mostly set at the country castle where Gabrielle escaped prostitution by becoming the mistress of rich playboy Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde). He is no boy, and even though he liked parties and possessing her, not necessarily in that order, he has a degree of self-knowledge and decency not usual for such men. She, in turn, knows the score. She is a capitalist, rather than a mere mistress, and she plans decidedly to collect on her investment.

She takes the name Coco from a little song about a dog that she sings in a wistful cabaret act with her sister after they escape the orphanage. She's a tough cookie even when we first meet her. This is not the usual biographical movie in which fate takes a hand and turns a talented nobody into a famous celebrity. In the case of Coco Chanel, she shaped her own life as carefully as she shaped the hats and dresses that eventually made her famous. Rather than being possessed with a mission for society, she simply turned out clothes she liked to wear - freeing women of all those feathers and, most of all, corsets.

When you think about it, Coco's story is about getting women out of their corsets.

Fontaine's direction subtly hints at the thoughts in Coco's head as she walks through a hall observing the nonsensical frou-frou women wore in her time.

Actress Audrey Tautou has a doe-eyed innocence that suggests an adult waif - not exactly a beauty but a very compelling creature. She became something of an art-house star with "Amelie" (2001), an over-praised curiosity that is notable, in memory, mainly for her.

The trick she pulls off with "Coco Before Chanel" is one of determination and strength. Coco designs hats and clothes because it is a job, not because she is inspired by heavenly ideas. She approaches sex with the same detached power to rule it rather than let it rule her. She explains that she sees little difference between men and women. Her secret, as she puts it, is that she turns out the light. That type thing, though, is off-camera.

We do see her great love affair with Arthur "Boy" Capel, a British polo player suggested by the handsome Alessandro Nivola, an American who believably plays the role in French. It is suggested that he was the main temptation that might have lured her away from working every day of her life, but it didn't work out. In an epilogue, we are told she died at 71 while working on a Sunday. She worked even on Sundays.

Coco, as seen here, isn't much of a fun character. She's no Auntie Mame partygoer. She is, though, the revelation of what was then a new-age woman who gave no quarter to anyone - man or woman.

The most stunning scene is the finale, when models exhibit Coco's designs as they glide down a staircase. Tautou creates the picture of a woman who is controlled, proud and level-headed as the designer evaluates what is before her. She questions every model and every design. Here is a woman who made her own way and never took anything for granted. We can see why she would go on to great success.

Since the movie ends with her ascendancy to fame, there may be some interest in another movie that will continue the story when it is released soon, "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky."