REVIEW: Colette

Directed by Wash Westmoreland
2018 Historical Biography
1 hour 51 minutes
From Bleecker Street Media

Starring
Keira Knightley
Dominic West
Denise Gough
Rebecca Root
Eleanor Tomlinson
Fiona Shaw
Ayisha Hart
Robert Pugh

I was surprised how much I liked this film.  The leading lady and I have a love of period films in common and I am quite the fan of biographies so I knew I wouldn't be walking out.  But after a little bit of a slow start, it completely engaged me and by the end, I was hooked.

It is based on a true story and as a result, I learned something which is always a plus.  I even came home and looked up information on Colette which always tells me the degree to which I was bewitched by a film.

Colette is most famous for writing the novella Gigi which was turned into the Broadway play starring Audrey Hepburn and the Academy Award-winning film starring Leslie Caron.  That writing was later in her life and not covered in the film which focuses solely on her married life with the first of three husbands, Henry Gauthier-Villars, known as Willy.

The story opens in 1893 in France just before Gabrielle Colette and Willy are married.  They appear crazy about one another despite the fact that he was one of the great libertines of his day in Paris where they move shortly after their marriage. Even though he is a writer himself, he encourages her to ghostwrite for him because he is too busy trying to make ends meet.  He also convinces her that women writers would have no success in getting published.

She pens a semi-autobiographical novel whose main character is called Claudine and it is so wildly sensational that she writes three followup novels featuring Claudine.  All, of course, are under Willy's name and all bestsellers.

When Colette realizes what a philanderer Willy is, instead of turning a blind eye or divorcing him, she jumps into the world of adultery... with a woman.  Eventually Willy sleeps with her as well.

Even though she falls in love with another woman, Colette still stays with Willy until a time that she discovers his betrayal in a whole other matter.  Suffice it to say this bold and bright woman is going to come out from the shadows of a man with her own brand of ferocity.

Both Knightley and West give it all they've got.  It's a particularly great performance from her.  I couldn't believe how much she reminded me of Jacqueline Bisset.  Perhaps they should play mother and daughter one day.  It was great to see West in a leading romantic role.  I have liked him since Mona Lisa Smile and Chicago and more recently TV's The Affair.  The duo have a wonderful chemistry.  

Period films usually have a wonderful look to them and this one is no exception.  Budapest stood in for 19th century Paris.  Outdoor scenes were magical and indoors was beautifully lit.... all very sumptuous.

Director Westmoreland certainly knows his way around a woman's story.  He helped Julianne Moore collect a long-awaited Oscar in 2014 for Still Alice.

How interesting that this film has the same general theme as The Wife which I reviewed earlier.

What a timely piece of film-making it is, too, for the U.S. and its surge of female independence.  The call must have already gone out because my audience was loaded with women.


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A good 50s's film