Hot Coco in 'Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinski'

The couturier and the composer apparently enjoyed an affair, though biographers have discovered little about it. That frees up director Jan Kounen and co-writer Chris Greenhalgh, working from his novel, to imagine how it started and upon which fine floor rugs it occurred in "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky," a well-researched, steamed-up fiction that's designed to stoke the erotic fantasies of modern history professors everywhere.

Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen play the icons, one a French fashion empress who finds monogamy passé, the other a Russian visionary saddled with an ailing wife (Elena Morozova). The film begins with a dollop of truth: Chanel attends the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's dissonant ballet "The Rite of Spring" (which spiraled into a semi-riot), and later offers the penniless Stravinskys a place in her country home.

After that, the film is one big hypothetical: Wouldn't it be cool if . . . ?

Well, if only. We're led to believe that this coupling produced great art, namely the legendary perfume Chanel No. 5, but crosscutting between vials of musk and 88 keys isn't enough to convince. It's also hard to believe that Chanel and Stravinsky were the loves of each other's lives, no matter how loud the violins play. At times, "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" makes fiction feel like a dirty word.