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A loose, star-packed fashion-world satire that works best as an Altman ensemble hangout: observational, breezy, and intermittently sharp. It’s more about atmosphere, overlapping chatter, and celebrity tableau than a tightly built comedy, so the appeal depends on whether you enjoy Altman’s meandering method.
4% (16,829)
Where to watch: Buy
1994 · 2h 13m · ★ 4% (16.8K)
Sex. Greed. Murder. Some things never go out of style.
Director: Robert Altman
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Jean-Pierre Cassel
During Paris Fashion Week, models, designers and industry hot shots gather to work, mingle, argue and try to seduce one another.
Robert Altman
Miramax
Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Kim Basinger, Chiara Mastroianni, Stephen Rea, Anouk Aimée, Rupert Everett, Rossy de Palma, Tara Leon, Georgianna Robertson, Lili Taylor, Sally Kellerman, Ute Lemper, Forest Whitaker, Tom Novembre, Richard E. Grant, Anne Canovas, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins
A loose, star-packed fashion-world satire that works best as an Altman ensemble hangout: observational, breezy, and intermittently sharp. It’s more about atmosphere, overlapping chatter, and celebrity tableau than a tightly built comedy, so the appeal depends on whether you enjoy Altman’s meandering method.
Prêt-à-Porter is Robert Altman in gossip mode: a roaming camera, a crowded social ecosystem, and a lot of people talking past one another while the movie quietly studies vanity, performance, and status. The setting gives him a perfect excuse to turn Paris Fashion Week into a miniature society, full of vanity, flirtation, and self-mythology.
The problem is that the satire is often thinner than the form around it. Altman’s method still creates pleasure in the moment, especially when the ensemble is allowed to drift and collide, but the film can feel more amused than incisive. It’s a movie of textures, faces, and attitudes more than punchlines.
If you respond to Altman’s late-period ensemble style, there’s plenty here to admire: the cast, the sense of place, and the way the film treats fashion as both theater and commerce. If you want a sharper or more satisfying comedy, though, this one may feel like a glossy shrug.
Patrik Sandberg (5★) · 189 likes
One of Robert Altman’s greatest and most misunderstood masterworks, Pret-a-Porter sits alongside Short Cuts, Nashville, and The Player as a definitive assertion of the Altman style—the apologue technique, an overlapping narrative structure that reads as tableau. A distinct approximation for reality with an uncanny sense of irony. The movie was panned by critics upon release, who took relish in assailing its purported lack of depth. Renowned loser Janet Maslin wrote in the New York Times that the film was “tepid,”… more
Cormac 👑 (3★) · 121 likes
To watch PRET-A-PORTER is to feel like what it must feel like for people who hate NASHVILLE to watch NASHVILLE. I quite liked it. (Peep that cast and tell me you’re not at a little interested.)
Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 (2.5★) · 78 likes
Altman's mid '90s satire on the world of fashion was a rather devastating flop on its release, much criticised for failing to hit its targets or truly appreciating the milieu the filmmaker found himself in. As many fashion insiders said at the time, the reality proved to be more absurd, whilst film critics claimed Altman's attempt to rewrite The Emperor's New Clothes was lacking the necessary bite and all too predictable an affair. Audiences were clearly expecting something similar to… more
Justin LaLiberty (3★) · 74 likes
always thought Popeye was Altman’s weirdest until I sat through 133 minutes of this and 20% of the runtime was people stepping in dog shit
Filipe Furtado (3★) · 70 likes
This pushes the Altman conundrum to the limit: everything is just an excuse to set a closed system, so his camera can move around a lot of small bits of human behavior, but the conception is very thin, and the satire is listless. So this often very pleasing at the moment, and maddening. The cast is deep and their genuine pleasure with Altman vignettes shows, and it is great to see him getting to work with so many terrific European
Altman’s sharper, more confident Hollywood satire with the same ensemble glide and insider-eavesdropping energy.
A sprawling Altman mosaic that shows his method at its richest: intersecting lives, social observation, and tonal control.
The essential Altman ensemble film, with multiple characters, overlapping dialogue, and a satirical view of performance culture.
A later Altman ensemble piece that turns a closed social world into a sharp comic system of hierarchy and behavior.
One of Altman’s great social comedies, built from chaos, class tension, and a large cast of competing egos.
A fast, irreverent ensemble comedy that captures Altman’s love of disorder, banter, and institutional satire.
A glossy satire of beauty, aging, and image obsession that pairs well with fashion-world absurdity.
A sharp, stylish comedy about appearance, social codes, and status performance in a consumer culture.
A more streamlined fashion-industry comedy that delivers the workplace and image politics this film only sketches.
A broad but affectionate fashion-world parody for viewers who want the industry mocked more directly.
A fashion-industry musical that offers a more romantic, polished view of the same milieu.
A refined, obsessive look at fashion as ritual, control, and private power dynamics.
fashion industry satire, ensemble comedy, celebrity culture, social performance, Paris milieu, class and status, vanity and image, sexual politics
ensemble satire, fashion world, Paris, 1990s comedy, overlapping dialogue, celebrity culture, social satire, glossy, misanthropic humor, European setting