If you knew enough about Mr. Saint Laurent's life and already in love with his dazzling works on your way in, this film would satisfy you. Otherwise, you were left hanging out there, feeling that something's missing. This biopic did a good job in not overdramatizing the less-than-eventful life of this famous designer. We were allowed to observe the substantial life of Mr. Saint Laurent in a quiet but penetrating way. The actor actually brought back to life Mr. Saint Laurent. Through him, we feel the senses of fulfillment, deprivation, craving for stability or wilderness of love, and we acknowledge that Mr. Saint Laurent and his lifetime companion and business associate truly steered the Saint Laurent ship through the uncertainty of life and multi-faceted forms of human weakness. It shows us that artistic talents, while indispensable, must be supported by mental strength and determination, something Mr. Saint Laurent missed at times. Well, lust for money and financial success does help, I figure, but it is never the main element to real success. To me personally, Mr. Saint Laurent's life is not enough to make a great drama. A biopic, yes, but not a drama. If the script writer should decide to explore inner thinking of Mr. Saint Laurent behind a few of his designs, and the struggle and the inspiration he had during the process, we might be getting a drama in our hands. Another lacking element was the pressure of changing decades / era. The film simply moved us from this year to another, without real insertion on what all these time changes meant. They should have brought us new challenges, fears, uncertainty, and the other world around the fashion world. There was none of it. Judging from this film alone, Mr. Saint Laurent simply floated around this world, graced upon it, and simply left. Not enough.

Review: This movie gives an in depth look into Yves Saint Laurent life, which had its ups and downs throughout his successful career in the fashion industry. I liked the way that the director showed how he became famous after his brief take over from Christian Dior. It really does show the dark side of his life and his battle with his inner demons whilst trying to sustain his career. Pierre Berge really was the genius behind the business side of his fashion world, but when it came to the actual designing and production of his amazing clothes, you really can't fault Saint Laurent. His whole thought process was extremely unique which was noticed by Pierre, earlier on his in career. After battling through many obstacles in his life, Yves always received love from the public through his fashion which is still popular to this day. As a movie, I found it entertaining and an eye opener, into a world which I know nothing about. Enjoyable!Round-Up: I haven't heard of any of the actors in this movie before, but man, they really did do a good job. The emotion and drama throughout the movie was great and the performance by the leading actor couldn't have been played better by anyone else. His mannerism and gestures were spot on and he actually did look like Saint Laurent. I would have liked to see what had happened in his career before he sadly died in 2008 of brain cancer, but it's still a very well put together biopic. After watching the bonus features on the DVD, I saw that the real Pierre Berge helped with the move and he gave them permission to use the real clothes and shoot in Yves apartments which shows how in depth the movie really is. It would have been good to see some real footage of the man himself, but that's just me being fussy. I'm not usually one that likes movies with subtitles, but I didn't lose interest throughout the movie, which is a plus for me.Budget: €12million Worldwide Gross: $20millionI recommend this movie to people who are interested in Yves Saint Laurent and the troubled mind behind his successful career as a fashion designer. 6/10

The name alone should be something people recognize. For women but even for men the name should mean something. Same goes for me, though I was never aware of the story behind the man who created a trademark. It's a bit of a cliché that men who "make" dresses, are more likely to be drawn to men. But the movie does a good job of finding a balance and showing off a real human being. One with many flaws and vices, as many as virtues I suppose.So even if you're not aware of the man himself, you might find something intriguing here. And the beautiful Charlotte is a great companion to break into the male dominated world, where obviously the focus lies on our main actor. And a terrific job he's doing here, always balancing many aspects of a life that while many have longed for, none would have wanted to turn exactly like that. Being with people, does not take away sadness or loneliness ... but watching this playing out, is more than incredible.

about imperial ass-kissing. The film proclaims to be the closest to reality version of YSL's ascendancy and troubled middle years, what with all the couture and sketches from the archive, that had the approval of Mr. Berge. Also his astonishment by Niney's portrayal of YSL. And that should be enough.Yet the moment off-screen narration steps in, with the voice of an elderly version of Mr. Berge, as in an extension from his funeral eulogy for YSL, we are in deep, troubled waters. Is this a personal letter in the form of a movie feature length film? Does it inaugurate something new, something equal to its initiative, given the imperial gesture? The motive seems little more than ass-kissing. People may object that Mr. Berge has the same chauffeur for decades, and that tells something about the man, but you cannot go into film-making with that kind of mentality; at least, you cannot supervise it thoroughly. And the fact that he chose a first time director, instead of someone more experienced to handle such a dramatic life that calls for insight, should make us pause and think.As it is, Pierre Niney gives a wondrous impersonation; but this is not acting. The film soon derails after its beginnings, into a run-by-the-numbers descent into drugs, insecurity, jealousy, retaliation, beauty and second-rate shenanigans portrait of a couple's life that seems as interchangeable as any. Should we care for Mr. Berge's "sincerity" in exposing himself as a vindictive personality who wanted to control YSL's life by getting into his bed everybody the former cared for? Yes, we should care, by condemning this self-aggrandizement AND advertisement, for it is nothing else, and no one should buy into the "sincere" element of this loathsome behavior.But in order not to be abstractly moralistic, I will ground what I suggest in more detail: watch Gallieni's gaze that has something epicene, which the actual Begre surely lacks: this is a fictional detail that calls for unwarranted sympathy.For all the Marrakech scenery, the LSD sequence comes off as offensively unimaginative; clown faces in the camera, really? This severely undermines YSL's vision, who may have experimented with drugs but not like a deluded off-shore May '68 student: after his sojourn there he came back with the sublime scandal of the first see-through blouse. Where is that? Where is the '71 Occupation show scandal? Of all the references to his shows all we get is the famous and respected Russian one from 1976 that is presented in the film in a mortuary manner. And then the appearance of Berge's old age suddenly talking to a ghost. Please. Spare us the badly edited sanctimony.The film has only the fashion, the sketches, the lodgings and the artifacts to offer, but this does not amount to film exactly; the film feels introverted, with YSL's friends and court curiously lacklustre, with none whatsoever evocation of the era's scale, of the persons' complexity or/and vision, as if it all was a mundane party affair of a middle shots sensibility and eye for space and how people occupy and move around it. May the garden forgive and forget.One sincerely hopes that the forthcoming film about YSL, since it does not have the approval of Mr. Berge will deal with less archival respectability. I for one hope that it will deal, since it is yet again a young actor portraying YSL, with the guerre des dentelles (pauvre Lagerfeldt, by the way) in a less hammy manner. Who knows? Perhaps one day we will have a feature covering the 80's wars between Berge and Arnault, or one for the 1990 January show and its aftermath with the Opera Bastille opening with Les Troyens, with Aeneas flying from the fallen city of Troy and his ill-stared love for Dido. Tell me about some story-within-a-story operatic lace, not some Marrakech chewed up-scenery in a sophomore manner for the emperor.