WARNING: SPOILERS

In the entire history of film and television, according to IMDb.com, French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has only been portrayed three times: Ian McKellen in an episode of “Saturday Night Live” in 2002; then two feature-length French biopics in 2014. After years of famine, in other words, the feast. A model’s diet—but more purge than binge. Basically “Truman Capote writing ‘In Cold Blood’ in two 2005 feature films” all over again.

The other YSL movie, “Saint Laurent” starring Gaspard Ulliel, focuses on the designer during his jet-set heyday from 1967 to 1976. This one, starring Pierre Niney, starts in ’57 in Oran, Algeria, where Laurent was born and raised, and it ends about the same time as the other, 1976, when Laurent pulled himself out of his coke-addled stupor to reimagine Russian peasant garb—ushanka hats, linen dresses, and shawls and scarves—as haute couture. How he did this we don’t know. As with most of his creations in the movie, they’re just there. Then there’s applause. Then someone says he’s a genius. Répéter.

A lot of knowledge is assumed here so it’s good I watched it with Patricia, who knows something about fashion and design. I didn’t know, for example, that the Russian fashion show was a watershed event for Laurent—his 61st home run, so to speak. P hadn’t heard of his first model-muse, Victoire Doutreleau (Charlotte Le Bon, César nominee, and hot), but definitely knew the second, Betty Catroux (Marie de Villepin), who has a smaller and more meaningless role. Does she even speak a line of dialogue? She’s haught instead of hot.

This “Yves Saint Laurent” was nominated for seven Césars, winning one (best actor for Niney), and it’s nicely photographed (by Thomas Hardmeier), but it’s not a particularly good movie. When we first see YSL he’s already the heir apparent at Dior. How did he get there? Then Dior dies and YSL takes over. Then he’s conscripted into the French military, but the movie keeps things vague. The Wikipedia entry on YSL gives us more drama:

Saint Laurent was in the military for 20 days before the stress of hazing by fellow soldiers led to him being admitted to a military hospital, where he received news that he had been fired by Dior. This exasperated his condition, and he was transferred to Val-de-Grâce military hospital, where he was given large doses of sedatives and psychoactive drugs, and subjected to electroshock therapy. Saint Laurent himself traced the history of both his mental problems and his drug addictions to this time in hospital.

Most of the movie is about his relationship with longtime companion and business partner Pierre Bergé (Guillaume Gallienne), who helps him set up his own fashion house. In fact, the movie becomes more about Bergé than Laurent. We see events through his eyes. As Laurent grows from timid genius to outlandish jet-setter, Bergé displays the patience of Job. He tries to protect Laurent and is accused of controlling him. Laurent cheats on him incessantly, and falls in love with another man, but Bergé takes it all with preternatural calm (and some connivance). Does Bergé ever go with Laurent to the clubs? Does he want to? Meanwhile, the reason YSL is relevant—fashion—gets short shrift in favor of nightclubbing and descent into addiction, which is never (never ever, screenwriters) interesting.

How about a conversation on the basics of fashion? Why this dress is beautiful and that one isn't? Why this fashion show succeeded and that one didn't? “Yves Saint Laurent” is the second French movie I’ve seen in a month where I wanted a little philosophical discussion from the French and didn’t get it. What's going on here? Are they trying to overcome their stereotype by offering its opposite? Come back to the boulangerie, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean-Paul Sartre.