Colette - Review

Colette

Actress Keira Knightley (Love Actually, Pride and Prejudice and The imitation Games) is the central character of a husband and wife true story about famed French Novelist Author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette who went from relatively obscurity to being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Her best known work, the novella Gigi (1944), was the basis for the film and Lerner and Loewe stage production of the same name. She was also a mime, an actress, journalist election to the Belgian Royal Academy (1935), the Académie Goncourt (1945, and President in 1949), and a Chevalier Award (1920) and Grand Officer (1953) of the Légion d'honneur.

PLOT: The story picks up with the introduction of a very young and emotionally naïve woman being married to a successful and slightly older Parisian writer known commonly as "Willy" (Dominic West). With her full name now Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley) we see her whisked away from her country childhood roots in rural France to be transplanted to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to start ghostwriting for him; a common practice in literature at the time. But when she pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named “Claudine”, it sparked a nationwide even global bestseller and overall cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels. But shortly after their new found fame Colette's has a fight over creative ownership of her written material as well as the acceptance of gender and sexual roles consider abhorrent and taboo even for enlighten French culture. These events drives Collete to overcome societal dogma resulting not only revolutionizing the way people viewed and consumed literature, but the way fashion and sexual expression were seen for women everywhere.

REVIEW: Keira Knightley is nothing short of brilliant in her portrayal of this French icon. She captures the inner strength of a woman who was not afraid to step out of the constraining social norms of the late 1890’s by openly exploring her inner sexual desires very openly with bawdiness that by moral standards then seemed way too decadent for civilized society. And while the film has several moments of adult humor, levity and dramatic lightness, “Colette” is also very stylized with it's exploration of female sexually. A smart film story that managed (from my perspective) to have kept transforming itself almost every frame of its 1:50 minute running time that deeply drew me in to this woman was way ahead of her time. Exploring very systematically her witty intellectual spirit of someone fundamentally not afraid to be herself while writing some of the most coveted pieces of literature in French history.  

The structure of film itself is not an overly profound or dramatic portrayal of this courageous woman’s’ life. Actually the director seems to have chosen deliberately to telling her story in a rather conventionally and subdued way. But by doing so, along with Knightley acting prowess, the process of showcasing her achievements still powerfully shine through with an effervescent display of self-joy, self-determination and personal strength. “Colette” is a personal examination of a woman who bravely stepped away from the conventional contractual business like arrangement in her marriage to a self controlling story of some one being the sole determinant source of her own success, her won desires and own inner happiness.  

Delving mostly about the younger aspects of life, in "Colette" we only see a very small snippet of the impact she had. This story clearly has a lot more written material to expand and explore on in the form of a sequel about the more mature aspects of a woman's life who went onto become the toast of an entire country's culture. Nevertheless this current effort is still a fabulous small slice of life film filled with enormous personal charm and historical insights.  

With exquisite decorate set designs, costumes, make up and musical score production in tow, I have no doubt "Colette" will be garnering several Oscar Nominations, along with absolute certainty a nomination for Best Actress for Knightley for her strong and her personal best work here.

3.75 Stars