Still from new Chanel No. 5 film starring Gisele Bündchen. All images courtesy of Chanel.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been more than 10 years since Baz Luhrmann produced one of the first advertising-driven short films for Chanel. It was titled No. 5 The Film and starred Nicole Kidman and Rodrigo Santoro. In the 180-second-long movie, Kidman’s character is seen running down the street in a fabulous pink dress trying to escape her A-list life. She hops into a cab with a stranger and soon they are in each other’s arms. After their brief love affair, she returns to her life in the spotlight. As she walks down a red carpet, surrounded by paparazzi, she looks back to the building rooftop adorned with the words “Coco Chanel.” Her lover is there, and they exchange knowing smiles before she turns away and walks into the bright lights. In the latest film, The One That I Want, which I watched at an exclusive advance screening during Paris Fashion Week, the star is Gisele Bündchen and the storyline has a decidedly different twist. In this new version, which Luhrmann prefers to describe as a poem set to “You’re the One That I Want” by Lo-Fang—Bündchen’s character is a successful model who lives in a posh beach-front home outside New York. She has an adorable child and a handsome husband, played by Games of Thrones hottie Michiel Huisman. In the opening scenes, there are multiple full-body slo-mo shots of her surfing that will make you marvel that anyone has been blessed with such exquisite DNA. But as Luhrmann—who attended the press screening—said: No one can have the bod, the career, the family and the fab house without their relationships eventually fraying at the corners. The woman in the film has to choose between her work and her life, but does she run to, or away from, the man this time?

 

Read on to find out what Luhrmann’s Chanel woman decides to do…. (more…)