Full disclosure: the wildly eclectic oeuvre of director Robert Altman has never really clicked into place for me. For example, I loved 'Popeye' but was left sort of unsatisfied with 'The Player' and 'Short Cuts'. 'Gosford Park' and 'McCabe and Mrs Miller' were my jam, though.
When I think of Robert Altman, I think of an expert juggler or a mechanic assembling some absurdly complex engine. There are so many moving parts and whirling cogs to his films: big ensemble casts, rapid-fire dialogue where his characters yammer all over each other, and multiple sprawling narratives where everything is ultimately connected.
The selling points of 'Prêt-à-Porter' are twofold. It features on-location runway shows during Paris Fashion Week, with backstage access. For fashion fans, it has models and designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Issey Miyake, Sonia Rykiel and Gianfranco Ferré, and Thierry Mugler (his clothes are "all about getting a great fuck, honey") who make cameos. It also has a stacked cast - including Sophia Loren, Kim Basinger, Forrest Whitaker, Rupert Everett, Julia Roberts, Lauren Bacall, Tim Robbins, Lyle Lovett, Tracey Ullman, Cher, Naomi Campbell, Teri Garr, Richard E. Grant, and Harry Belafonte - playing groupies, editors, lovers, parasites and French fashion designers.
SWITCH: 'PRÊT-À-PORTER' TRAILER
Sophia Loren is undoubtedly the stand-out amongst the cast as the wife of the head of the fashion commission, dressing in curvy Christian Dior dresses. I also kind of dug Kim Basinger's spacey, Southern-accented fashion reporter and audience surrogate who takes us through the latest goings on around Paris Fashion Week, as well as Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins as rival reporters sharing a hotel room (their storyline is a nothingburger, but it's an interesting pairing of attractive actors). It's also nice to see Linda Hunt ('Kindergarten Cop', 'Solo: A. StarWars Story') pop up as a fashion magazine editor wearing a very strict Japanese designer look - her storyline is nothing to write home about, I just enjoy seeing Hunt in anything.
Sophia Loren is undoubtedly the stand-out amongst the cast as the wife of the head of the fashion commission, dressing in curvy Christian Dior dresses. I also kind of dug Kim Basinger's spacey, Southern-accented fashion reporter and audience surrogate who takes us through the latest goings on around Paris Fashion Week.
'Prêt-à-Porter' is a flimsy film in terms of its actual content - it is funny but not that funny (it features an inexplicable running gag about stepping in dog excrement), and it critiques the fashion industry, but in a very surface-level way. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect is observing the finesse with which Altman keeps juggling all the balls that he throws into the air.
Even if you aren't a film buff, there are worse ways to spend a few hours than watching an impressive assortment of 90s celebrities interacting with the fashion industry. An exercise in technique over substance, at the very least, 'Prêt-à-Porter' is a demonstration of the directorial prowess of Robert Altman.