Couture

UK Release Date. 26 February 2026
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 46 mins
Director. Alice Winocour
Cast. Anyier Anei, Angelina Jolie, Ella Rumpf.

Rating. 62%

Review.

The only film I managed to attend at The Glasgow Film Festival this year was the premiere of director, Alice Winocour’s English language debut, Couture. 

The film focuses on the lives of three women during Paris Fashion Week - a model, a makeup artist and a filmmaker. The three women, at different stages of their lives, face challenges with health, credibility and unfulfilled desires, and hang by a thread in the fabric of Winocour’s delicately interwoven narrative.

Ada (Anyier Anei) is an eighteen-year-old model from South Sudan in danger of losing her first big fashion show by crippling self doubt. Her character builds to one of the most impactful scenes in the film - a runway sequence in pursuit of her dreams.

Angèle (Ella Rumpf) is a makeup artist who is struggling with feelings of inadequacy as she battles repeated rejection from publishers in her attempts to pitch a book about her life as a backstage makeup artist. 

Finally, Maxine (Angelina Jolie) is a filmmaker who arrives in France to direct a short film to introduce the opening show of Paris Fashion Week. The day before the show Maxine finds out she has breast cancer.

At the core of Couture is a magnetic Angelina Jolie, who delivers one of the most layered performances of her career. Jolie’s personal experience and family history add a poignant context to the character, not to mention a strength and vulnerability in approaching the subject on such a sensitive level. Winocour wisely avoids defining the character only by illness. Maxine is multifaceted - she is spirited, bold and has a strong affinity with gothic horror. 

Continually shifting focus between the three main characters, the fluid structure is episodic, but elegant, as Winocour weaves from one narrative to the next. While some elements of the screenplay fall short of the mark, Winocour still manages to stitch together unique perspectives of the three women’s inner conflict. Couture is a rather calm, unambiguous and honest offering that manages to carry with it an aura of self-reflection. The type of film that finds power in subtlety.