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Intelligent and chic, this account of Coco Chanel’s brief affair with the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky picks up where ‘Coco Before Chanel’ left off: in 1920. Before that, it opens electrifyingly in 1913 with the near-riot at the premiere of ‘The Rite of Spring’. Coco is in the audience as jeers and boos greet Nijinsky’s dancers stomping out Stravinsky’s brutal, atonal score. Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) storms out of the theatre.
Anna Mouglalis makes for an icier Coco than Audrey Tautou, hardened by the death in 1919 of Boy Capel, the love of her life. When their paths cross in 1920, Stravinsky is penniless in Paris. Chanel invites him and his family to stay at her chic villa. It’s an obvious come on, and the two circle each other: Igor proud and egotistical, Coco arrogant and egotistical. Still, in the end you can’t help thinking this brief love affair was just that – intense maybe, but of no huge significance to either of them. More involving are Chanel’s encounters with Stravinsky’s wife, who is bedridden with tuberculosis but knows what her husband is up to. Coco presents her with a bottle of Chanel No 5 – an act of calculated cruelty. But Mrs S is no pushover, and her plain-spoken words to Coco about the effect of marriage on love might explain why Miss Chanel remained a mademoiselle.