Genre: Drama
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Writer: James Morgan & Ann Morrow
Cast: Brie Larson, Al Pacino, Emma Stone, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frances McDormand, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ruth Negga, Katherine Langford, Joe Pesci
Plot : Chaos is a good word, no the best word to describe the mood backstage, at a Couture fashion show. In between models and backstage workers, there is Belle (Brie Larson), an insecure model. A woman asks her to come to put her outfit on, but she needs to do something first. She runs in the bathroom and vomits. On her way back, she meets Alyson (Emma Stone), a fellow model. She asks her if everything is alright and Belle lies, saying she is. She’s grabbed by the arm by a the lead makeup artist and hairstylist, Diane Monroe (Frances McDormand). She tells Belle that she isn’t pretty enough and applies makeup on her face to “cover some imperfections”. Chloe (Ruth Negga), who’s sitting in the chair right next to her, understands what’s she going through, she’s never pretty enough for Diane, probably because she’s black. Belle finally enters the dressing room, where the main stylist, Karlo Hemingway (Sacha Baron Cohen) changes her outfit three times, because “sweetheart, you’re just too fat”. As she makes her way to the catwalk, Hemingway reminds her to tuck her belly in and the smile no matter what. Belle walks on the catwalk, next to Jessica (Chloe Grace Moretz). Demoralized and devoid of any energy, Belle falls, taking Jessica with her. The crowd gasps and both of them get up and run backstage, shame. Jessica throws a tantrum at Belle. The Couture brand president, Gaston Girardi (Al Pacino) arrives and screams at Belle. She doesn’t hear what he’s saying to her and she runs to the bathroom, crying. He then turns his attention to Jessica, who was also involved in all of this, even if she did nothing wrong. Belle lies down on the bathroom floor where she passes out on the floor.
Belle wakes up with Alyson, Jessica and Chloe around her. Alyson says she understands all pressure Belle can feel, but she needs to understand that the business is tough and not everything will always go your way. Jessica says she’s not ready to forgive her just yet, she just ruined her moment. While the other models are trying to console her, Diane comes in and throws a very judgemental look at them, as if they were inferior people. When Diane gets out, she immediately tells Gaston and Karlo, who are waiting just outside, that they’re inside. They eventually get out of the bathroom and Karlo starts to judge Belle. He says that she shouldn’t do this anymore. She’s not that pretty and she’s easily replaceable. Gaston tells Karlo to get off his high horse and to calm down. Nobody’s going to be fired, it’s bad press, but Belle needs to pick up the pace. It’ll always be like that around here and a company can’t afford to have a liability like her in its ranks. Unfazed, Belle walks away with her friends, as Karlo continues to vent his dissatisfaction with the models to Gaston.
Everyone is reunited in Belle’s apartment that she shares with her co-worker Alyson. They drink wine and eat a light salad, the usual post-fashion show meal. The mood isn’t the same as usual. The incident regarding Belle cast a shadow over the usual camaraderie in the group. Jessica is still low-key mad at Belle that she fell on her, which saw her be on the receiving hand of one of Gaston Girardi’s world-famous tantrum. Belle says they should talk about the obvious elephant in the room. She starts to tell people why she felt on the catwalk. It’s just because of one thing, it’s just an accumulation of things that happen at the Couture brand. She tells the girls a story involving Diane, the make-up artist and Karlo, the designer. In the past, they’ve constantly called her ugly and fat, respectively, which completely ruined her self confidence. She then confesses that she’s bulimic as a result. She admits that she threw up moments before going on stage and she didn’t eat anything two days prior, just to be sure that she was fit enough for Karlo, but she wasn’t.
Karlo and Diane are sharing a meal backstage after the event and they re-watch the show in its entirety. They give the usual nasty remarks and throw some jabs at model, but they stay true to themselves and identify the flaws in the show, in the make-up, the dressing, the lightning, the posture, the demeanor, everything. They may be execrable human beings, but there’s a reason why they’re the best in the business and we can see it tonight. Diane takes a particular attention to Gaston’s demeanor. You can see him in the clips and she thinks he might be a homosexual. They start to gossip and they want to find out. Karlo says he’ll do something and they both leave.
Belle isn’t the only one who’s being bullied and psychologically harassed by workers of the Couture brand. In a flashback sequence, Alyson tells the story of what happened to her when she got the job at Couture. She went in for a job interview. She was wearing something low-cut, but not in a sexual way. She was surprised to see that she’ll be meeting the head of the brand, Gaston Girardi himself, if she wants to have the job. The lady at the desk tells her it’s customary, does this with every potential model. Right off the start, Gaston admits that it isn’t standard procedure, he just wanted to meet with her personally, because he was really impressed by her previous shoots. He keeps looking at her breasts. Some say it might be her fault for wearing this particular shirt, but she never imagined she would meet with a perv. He invites her to sit on the couch, which Alyson is hesitant about. He says she doesn’t have to worry, he won’t do anything illegal to her, illegal being the key word. He insists that she has to sit on the couch if she wants the job. As soon as she sits on the couch, Gaston gropes her and she immediately gets up. He says that she’ll get the job. Alyson refuses, not wanting to work for a first class pervert, but he says that if she wants to work in this industry, she has to come work here, or else, he’ll ruin her reputation and she’ll never find work again. Gaston has the power to do that and Alyson knows it. She accepts the job, but swears to never enter Gaston’s office, let alone speak to him alone. When she leaves the Couture’s offices, she starts crying. In the present, the other girls can’t believe what they just heard.
Gaston Girardi is writing in his personal journal. Karlo knocks on the door and Gaston tells him to enter. He points at his journal and notes that if anybody reads it at some point, Gaston is in for a lot of troubles. Karlo notes that everyone has secrets, even dark secrets, grabbing Gaston’s tie while saying it. Gaston knocks him off, saying some secrets are darker than others and people don’t need to know them. He takes Karlo as an example. A common man sees him as a brilliant fashion designer that has a keen eye for style, but what the common man doesn’t know, is that Karlo’s soul is ink-black in the eyes of the models working for him. Karlo Hemingway is mean, rude and impolite backstage, but people don’t know that. Gaston says that if Karlo ever touches him like that again, everyone will know who the true Karlo Hemingway is. He then directs his attention to the door and tells Diane to come in, he knows she’s listening through the door. He tells her that she may be one of the best makeup artist in the entire world, but just like her friend Karlo, she’s a mean-spirited woman. She doesn’t want people to know she’s a white supremacist, right? He concludes by saying that’s why people fear him and that’s why his dirty little secrets will never get out. Both Karlo and Diane walk out, troubled by what they just heard.
Chloe too has her history of problems with people at the Couture brand. From racist comments from fellow models when she started to unsavory comments regarding her beauty. The worst offender of all is makeup artist Diane Monroe. She recalls one time, where she was sitting in the makeup chair and Diane was doing everyone else but not her, because she says she’ll never be able to make her look pretty enough. She figured it was just because she didn’t like her, but she Diane bluntly told her that she didn’t think she was pretty because she was black. She tells Chloe that she doesn’t deserve to be here and she would have to earn that privilege. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t even step on that catwalk, but it seems like Gaston seems something in her that she simply can’t see, because she doesn’t believe people like her can’t have what she calls the “it” factor. But what does she knows, she’s only a makeup artist. She may be good, but there’s a limit to what make-up can fix. Diane says she doesn’t understand what Chloe’s doing in this profession, she assumes it’s just because of race representation. Chloe was furious at Diane, but she kept her mouth shout, out of fear that she’d lose her job if she stood up to Diane.
It’s now up to Jessica to let go of her deepest secret regarding the Couture brand. She says that she never had any encounters with the staff, but she’s just sick and tired of Karlo telling her to lose weight. Who is he to tell her that, he weights about 300 pounds! She always suspected he’s a pervert, but she was never able to prove it. She admits to the ladies that she doesn’t have any shocking revelations about the backstage workers of Couture, but about her. After years of fat shaming from Karlo, Jessica is now anorexic. She says she hides it well. She’s definitely skinny, but not the worrying kind of skinny. She says you can only see it if you look at the details. She points out that she didn’t even drink wine tonight, despite having a glass in her hand, and she barely touched her salad. All she eats in a day is a hard-boiled egg and an apple. They continue to chat casually after these personal confessions, but you can see that there’s something in the air.
The next day, there’s a new model who was just hired, Justine (Katherine Langford). She seems shy and embarrassed. When Belle sees her for the first time, she’s with Karl, who’s measuring her. He keeps telling her she’s fat and she agrees that she should lose weight, even though she’s in a good physical shape and in absolutely no need to lose weight, but all naïve and new to the job, she succumbs to the pressure put on her by Karlo and she says she’ll do it. He points out areas where she should trim some fat and gives her a quick, but mean review of her worst flaws, wondering how the hell he’s going to adequately dress up a dis-proportioned body like hers. He mentions that he thinks the only reason she must have got that job was because she slept with Gaston, whispering in her ear that he knows what’s really going on in his office. He continues to whisper and asks her how big was Gaston’s male organ and she leaves the room, shocked, as Karlo laughs innocently. Belle waits for her to come out of the room and she presents herself. They share a few cordialities and she asks Belle is Karlo is always such a dick and Belle is afraid to tell her that yes, indeed, he is. She takes her by the hand and forces her to meet with her friends. When Belle presents her to her friends, she introduces her as fat Justine. Jessica says she’s not fat, but Belle assures her that Karlo did tell her that she was fat. Alyson pressures her to not lose weight. They go somewhere where someone will not hear them and they tell her everything there’s to know about this place, including the dirty secrets. Justine can’t believe it. She starts to cry and Alyson asks her why. She was, too, groped by Gaston in her “job interview” and she swore not to tell anyone, or else she’ll be fired and her reputation will be ruined, says Alyson. Belle tells her to carry on for now. She has a plan
Three weeks later
Things are once again chaotic at a Couture event, especially backstage. The rough makeup artist Diane is still reigning over her room with a heart of stone, for the multiple comments she directs towards the models. Everyone is still too fat for Karlo, too dis-proportioned for Karlo, not talented enough for Karlo, but to the outside world, Karlo is one of the best there is in the business. Gaston Girardi is watching, eating his models with his eyes. Everyone is running backstage, excitement and nervousness are in the air. Chloe gets off the makeup chair and she’s ready to go. She steps on the catwalk. During this time, Alyson follows Belle everywhere, to make sure that she doesn’t collapses another time, Gaston’s orders. Belle rushes in the bathroom, just to pee, she reassures Alyson, but she throws up two times inside. Chloe comes back from the catwalk and unzips her suit, she breathes normally again. She prepares for the big finale. Everyone is looking for the models, Belle, Alyson, Chloe, Jessica and Justine. We see Jessica leaving the makeup room, stealing black makeup on her way out. While Karlo is running around looking for Belle and Alyson to make final adjustments on their clothes. The models meet in the restrooms. They all have swimsuits on, with a robe covering it, it’s the summer collection after all. They each take the black lipstick and write on each other’s chest. They write things calling out sexual harassment and fat shaming. They put their robes back on, so nobody can see their texts. It’s their time to go out. They walk the catwalk together for the big finale and they drop their robe. The cameras flash and the world sees their message.
Gaston Girardi comes out on the stage and he looks furious, he has his game face on. He’s about to start screaming at his rebellious models, but the crowd starts to cheer, loudly. Journalists come forward and praise Girardi’s very clear stand against such practices in his catwalk. He does a complete 360 and he’s now glad that his models did it. The world shows the highlight from the show and everyone is in awe of Gaston Girardi’s act of defiance and the support of the movement taking the world by storm, where men are punished for those unforgivable acts. The models can’t believe it. Everyone thinks Gaston was behind it all. Nobody spoke to them, so they can’t let the cat out of the bag. Belle is furious and the others understand.
Gaston, all smile, asks for Belle and the other girls to meet with him, in his office. He mentions how brave they were to do such a thing and people loved it. As soon as Belle wants to talk, he does another complete 360 and he reprimands the girls for their action. The tone he uses makes it clear that he doesn’t want it to happen again, but he’s going to let it go for now, because it brought good publicity. He advises them to not let the world know that they’re behind it all, or else, they know what will happen and they better get ready to bid farewell to the fashion world.
The same night, Gaston has a private meeting with his most trusted workers, Karlo and Diane, in his office. With all the ensuing press he received after what happened, he decided to book an appearance for the entire team, including the model, on the popular late night show, the Hess Show. He preps them beforehand, because he wants them to act like they planned it all together. Gaston knows that Karlo may be harsh on the ladies, so he can’t make these kind of comments on the show. He knows Diane is an absolute racist, everyone knows it, but it can’t show and she absolutely can’t tell. These two aren’t used to appear in the limelight, so he’s not really sure if they’re good enough to hide their eccentric and politically incorrect personalities, so he gives them lessons as to how to behave correctly and not show the entire world how much of a dick they are. They struggle to learn, but they finally master it.
As usual, the crew of models meet and Belle and Alyson’s apartment, where they drink wine and a light salad. They introduce Justine to this ritual and she seems like she enjoys it. The ambience worsens when Alyson turns on the television and they see Gaston eating up all the praise in the media. Belle shares her plan with the others on what to say tomorrow when they will appear on the Hess show. Everyone thinks it’s a good idea and they will do it. Chloe and Jessica are unsure if it’s good for them, career-wise, to do such a stunt, but Belle says it’s probably not, modeling-wise, but they are well aware that you can’t model until you’re in your sixties. At the very least, it could give them a platform and lead them to better things, things more healthy for them. Everyone agrees and they group hug to show their affection to one another.
In the middle of the night, Belle wakes up, sweating profusely. She had a dream about every bad thing that happened to her during her time working for Couture. In a flashback sequence, we hear every crude comments she received and it reveals her past of self-harm. The noise coming from Belle’s bedroom woke up Alyson who joins her, consoling her friend. Belle says she thought of self-harming herself again, but Alyson tells her that it will all end soon, hopefully. She wipes off Belle’s tears and share a hug before going back to bed.
The next night, everyone is backstage just before appearing on the Hess show. Karlo is openly flirting with the guy doing his hair, and the guy is truly uncomfortable. Diane low-key furious that an Afro-American is in charge of the makeup. She doesn’t say a word, but her body language sure says a lot. Gaston is the first one to be sent out. He’s presented by the Hess Show host, Greg Hess (Joe Pesci). He praises him for raising awareness for modern causes that affect women and the world in general. Gaston says his thankful of his praise and announces that he brought the team that brought the whole project to life with him tonight.
Then, out comes, Karlo, Diane, Belle, Alyson, Chloe, Jessica and Justine. Hess starts asking questions to each one of them and Karlo stumbles on his words. Diane is rude and gives a very short answer, clearly embarrassed to be on live television. Greg asks the models a question each, before going back on the subject of their visit. Then, Belle interrupts. She says the models have something important to announce. Belle starts by saying that the whole thing was the model’s idea. Gaston is flabbergasted. Jessica points out that Karlo is a misogynist who pushes women to lose weight, even if they don’t need to. She admits that she’s currently struggling from anorexia thanks to him. Belle adds that she’s now bulimic thanks to Karlo’s unsavory and unwanted comments. Gaston tries to interfere and Karlo is jumping out of his chair, but Greg does a great job to calm them down, because he knows that what’s happening is good for the ratings. Chloe then adds that Diane is the biggest racist she has ever seen that she can’t tolerate being around black women, or men. Diane tries to refute her arguments, but drops the n-word, signaling the end of her career. Gaston screams at them to shut up, which prompts Belle to stand up, because he knows what’s next. She walks over to Alyson and Justine. She knows what they’re about to do is difficult, but she’s there to support them. They say that Gaston groped them during their special job interview and that he threatened to ruin their career if they told someone. Alyson asks him how he’ll ruin her life, now that she ruined his. Gaston gets off his seat and feeling that things are going to get out of control, Greg sends everyone to the commercials. Security arrives and separates Gaston from the girls, who are recomforted by Greg for their brave act. The rest of the Couture crew is now leaving the building and a sea of journalists are there to welcome them. Gaston, Karlo and Diane refuses to comment the allegations. Inside, the girls are jubilating. They’re finally relieved of that weight that were dragging along.
That night, when Alyson and Belle come back to their apartment, Alyson asks the million dollar question. What are they going to do, now that their modeling career is over. Belle says that it doesn’t matter, because for the first time in a very long time, she’s happy and Alyson is too. The pressure of satisfying Couture’s every needs is over. They both start to make out in their excitement. During this time, Gaston watches the news and realizes with a deep and profound sadness that his fashion empire is in shambles. What he spent all his life building was destroyed in mere seconds, thanks to an unholy feeling of dominance over women. For the first time in a very long time, Gaston Girardi, the man everyone believed had a heart of stone, is crying, while throwing his personal journal in a trash can and lighting it on fire. At least people will never have access to that. As the flames consume the multiple, filled pages, Girardi cries more and more, until he has a hard time to breath. Now he knows what true sadness is. It’s his turn to be sad and the others’ to be happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment