Lagerfeld Confidential (12A)

Even by the unexacting standards of fashionista portraiture, this is a feeble effort. Karl Lagerfeld, the creative chief of the house of Chanel who looks like Tommy Lee Jones in a white ponytailed wig, gave unprecedented access to the documentary-maker Rodolphe Marconi, and the young man blew it.

The frustration of this is that one suspects that a little probing might have gone a long way. Lagerfeld, after all, is an intelligent, well-read fellow – only look at the library in his palatial Parisian residence – and not without wit, yet Marconi manages to ask him not a single interesting question. All we hear from behind the camera is sycophantic laughter at Lagerfeld's commanding self-confidence.

When given the chance, the designer talks vividly about his upbringing and his rather demanding mother, but he is never pressed on anything – not even fashion. (Can anyone explain why Lagerfeld wears such terrible outfits, for instance?) "I don't want to be a reality in people's life, I want to be like an apparition," says the ponytailed one. On this evidence, you'd have to say he's succeeded.