Audrey Tautou portrays the legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel in "Coco Before Chanel." Not only does she resemble Chanel, "she inhabits the role completely."

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For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France's Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the woman who inspired dozens of biographies by changing the shape of 20th-century fashion, not that much is known for sure about her formative years.

"Chanel lied all the time. She used to say, 'I invented my life because I didn't like my life,' " Anne Fontaine has said, with Audrey Tautou adding, "Chanel always disguised the reality. It takes some cunning to know who Chanel really was."

Although Chanel's reticence may sound like a barrier to filmmakers, it stimulated co-writer and director Fontaine and star Tautou, who've combined to turn "Coco Before Chanel" into a superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.

The most obvious credit goes to the strong, sure performance of Tautou, who co-starred in "The Da Vinci Code" following her breakthrough in the successful "Amélie." Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm.

The decision to focus "Coco" on the fashion designer's formative years was made by Fontaine, who cast Tautou before the script was written.

Fontaine is one of the most interesting of contemporary French directors. His earlier films, particularly "Dry Cleaning" and "How I Killed My Father," brought empathy and tact to emotionally complex stories of troubled and troubling relationships.

Although "Coco Before Chanel" is much less edgy than those earlier films, it shares with them a sensitive interest in the destiny of society's outsiders. And no one was more outside the system than Gabrielle Chanel, born poor in rural France and, after her mother died, abandoned by her father to be brought up in an orphanage run by nuns.

It's in the nature of "Coco Before Chanel" that we have the advantage over its subject: We know Chanel's career arc, her success at turning fashion almost inside out by creating clothes for women that allowed for movement and freedom. The film uses that by letting us notice things, such as the unusual black-and-white habits of the Aubazine order that might have influenced the designer almost without her knowing it.

Even in her early days, the key elements of Chanel's personality — her sharp tongue and formidable will — are present and accounted for. "I know how to express the present," Chanel liked to say. Showing us just how that expression took form and shape is the accomplishment of this satisfying film.