Saint Laurent

Bonello takes on the point of view of Saint Laurent himself, exposing a visionary world seen from within that is as strange and wonderful as that of a magnificently stitched garment turned inside out.

A film that manages to avoid the dreary, Wikipediaesque literalism that plagues so many biopics while obliquely evoking the man and his era with textures, atmosphere, mood and tone.

Unlike the clothes, though, the film is shapeless, running at its subject from all directions but never quite reaching its core.

A flamboyant but hollow exercise in glitz and pizzazz.

The screenplay... seems to generally lack a throughline or focus, coasting from party scenes full of drugs and alcohol to work-related drama but rarely managing to get inside the head of the self-destructive character the designer had become by the 1970s.

For all its visual fizz, Bonello’s film, which he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, tells us nothing about the designer save the usual pompous/concessive hero-worship.

To call the film “unwatchable” is to unfairly insult Josée Deshaies; his lush cinematography delights the eye when the camera roams around Saint Laurent’s workrooms. But “incomprehensible,” “interminable” and “immaterial” all apply.

Honest, sexy, and beautifully shot behind the scenes film of the galmorous world of high fashion at its most sordid and titillating. The drugs use and promiscuity perfectly depicted. Acting was great. The film could have been shorter.

There's a big problem with handling the movie's lenght. There are innecesary scenes on it, but strong points also. The performances from Ulliel & Garrel are the highlight of the movie, so it is the Production Design and Costume Design.

In 1967, the message to women, beauty is happiness. Mousse, music, detail, perfection, muses, loves, and fixations blend in fashion and fiction in the film Saint Laurent. Spoiled boy, animal , designer, brand, visionary, addict, and madman is Saint Laurent. But as Laurent loses his way to sex, drugs and fame - so does the film. However, the comeback, where past and present, inspiration and artistic creation, converge under Benello’s direction with Deshaies cinematography and Romand’s costumes capture an hallucinatory essense of YSL. In the end, beauty is not happiness.

Excluding two extraordinary scenes featuring Aymeline Valade and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, SAINT LAURENT is all surface and no insight. After 150 minutes of rich drug abuse, I just got bored. The film lacks any central conceit so you're lost and mired in a lot of "stuff." Sadly, the director has no cohesive vision about the man who was SAINT LAURENT.