Premiered at the Chanel Métiers d’Art show in Rome last night, a new multi-layered film creation from Karl Lagerfeld casts Chanel muse Kristen Stewart in a tongue-in-cheek role as an obnoxious actor playing a young Coco Chanel.
Titled Once and Forever, the film opens in a meeting room, where model, musician, Chanel muse and now actor Jamie Bochert — what can’t she do?! — is a producer, explaining the focus of the film: the story of Chanel’s ‘unknown lover,’ who complained that, despite their three year relationship, he wasn’t mentioned in any of her biographies. Stewart’s character, having mentioned already that she doesn’t like the selected director, now brings up controversial claims about Coco’s relationship with a German spy — “We only cover the years of happiness and success,” another producer responds.
Playing on the way Stewart has been unfairly stereotyped as a ‘stroppy teenager’ — all because she doesn’t grin like an idiot on red carpets, and deconstructs interviewers questions rather than spurting a press release back at them — the character is pretty obnoxious, to the young director, to the actor cast as her lover, and sometimes to the producer. But all with good reason — he’s letting the press interrupt her rehearsals.
British actress Geraldine Chaplin reprises her role as an older Coco Chanel, and there are mirrors of Chanel’s real life behind-the-scenes set up, with a cameo from creative consultant Amanda Harlech. It is a knowing film from Karl Lagerfeld, acknowledging and playing with rumors, stereotypes and even scandal to give us — just like Kristen Stewart — more than we expected, a creative expression beyond marketing-speak.