'Couture' skims the fashion world

Director Alice Winocour takes us to Paris for fashion week in Couture, a movie that tells three loosely related stories, one featuring Angelina Jolie. Perhaps you can already sense a problem. By having to switch the movie's focus from one character to another, Winocour loses the opportunity for in-depth looks at any of them, and Couture becomes more of a skim than a revelation. Jolie plays Maxine, an American director of an indie horror film who's been invited to make a short opening film to kick off fashion week. Eighteen-year-old Ada (Anyier Anei), an inexperienced, long-legged model, has been chosen to lead the parade of models that will open the show. Ada arrives in Paris from Kenya, where her family lives having fled wars in Sudan. Finally, we meet Angele (Elle Rumpf), a make-up artist who's writing a book about her experiences in the fashion world. Each of these characters faces different problems and opportunities. Maxine's participation in fashion week may provide her with a…