Coco Chanel revolutionized modern women’s fashion:

I bickered through the trailers because I was feeling anxious. I noticed that what I was talking nonsense so I popped an Ativan and settled in for the film.

Coco is about a desperately mentally ill Nietszchean transvestite. Poor, she uses aesthetics, intelligence, and vast social transgressions to rise above. She rocks the fashion world from the top down but remains essentially isolated forever.

The movie rarely gets into her inspiration or creative process. You see some ripping, chalking, and sewing, but her creations just kind of materialize when she needs them. Her notable decision to dress like a fisherman is one of the only, though best, examples. By the end you see how, maybe, she wouldn’t have been the nicest boss — shades of Lucille Bluth — but you’re on her side.

There’s a lot of beautiful photography in the film, like the scenes at the racetrack, the beach, French estates, and the fashion show at the end. The car crash is also well-shot. I’m beginning to pay more attention to photographic choices and there’s nothing better for seeing that stuff than playing with a camera yourself. Right now I’m noticing how cameras move at scene changes — in that film they were rarely still.

What else is there to say? It’s a French character study. Not a lot happens. You’re supposed to get into Coco’s mind, and I think Ativan helped.

The drug was surprisingly mild. There are all these warnings on the packaging about ending up in jail. It’s a date rape drug and it was a passenger on Michael Jackson’s and Heath Ledger’s last trips, so it holds a dark romantic fascination. That said, I can almost convince myself that I’m on sugar pills. “No strange effects, no drug cloud, no anxiety” I scribbled in my commonplace book.