Writtens:Wash Westmoreland & Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Screenplay) Richard Glatzer (Story)

Director: Wash Westmoreland

‘I forbid you!’

So screams Willy at his wife Colette in the climatic scene of Wash Westmoreland’s biopic of the eponymous heroine. It’s a line that defines Willy’s, played with frothing brilliance by Dominic West, relationship to both his wife and the rest of society. He sees his sex, and himself in particular, stood tall above the rest – an eagle among pigeons. Unfortunately for Willy, this worldview comes into a fatal collision with Colette’s increased sexual and social autonomy and the changing flux of the incoming modern world.

The ascent of Colette’s, the equally wonderful Keira Knightley, autonomy forms the sweep of the film’s narrative. As she begins to gain more control over her writing, her finances and her body, her marriage to Willy first crumbles and then collapses. Colette is the story of a few years in the long life of celebrated French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, writer of numerous novels and short stories who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1948. And she was a mime. An actual mime. How cool is that? The film presents her as coming from, not exactly an impoverished family but certainly one of a low class. She ends up marrying the opulent Parisian Henry Gauthier-Villars and moves with him to the city at the turn of the 20^th Century. Henri, under the pen-name Willy, writes music and theatre reviews, and in the film’s opening scenes decides to branch out into writing novels.

At least, that’s what Willy pretends to the intelligentsia of Paris.  In reality, he has several ghost writers who do the work for him, as he shouts vague ideas and deadlines at them. Colette is one of those writers and is seen early on composing numerous letters for Willy. He soon discovers that Colette has more than flair for writing and he first suggests, and then ultimately forces her, to write a series of novels based on her schooling and early life. The first novel, entitled Claudine, is a commercial and critical hit. Given its success, a battle ensues in which Willy becomes increasingly desperate for Colette to write more Claudine novels, while she refuses. This ultimately ends with him locking her in a room for hours at a time until another novel his completed. Which begets even greater success.

Moreland and Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s script does well not to fall into the biopic trap of showing a single scene in which something happens which causes the protagonist to suddenly morph into the historical legend the public perceive them to be. Instead, they demonstrate how Colette, through writing these novels, even under conditions of tyranny, begins to assert control over her life. As soon as the first novel becomes a success and the majority of France believe Willy to be the genius, when in reality it’s Colette, the power balance between them is irrevocably changed. Her talent, combined with her secret knowledge of her ultimately fraudulent husband, is what begins to crack the concrete casing her life has thus far been lived in.

As Colette’s confidence in her own intellect rises, Willy’s ability to manipulate and distort her thinking decreases. Knightley is wonderfully subtle, showcasing an incredibly deft touch in long-playing the way in which Colette evolves as a character. This is perhaps most evident in her ever-progressing sexual dynamic. She begins the narrative devoted to her husband and is understandably distraught upon discovering his infidelity. By the second act, she has openly declared her bi-sexuality to her husband and is engaging in a relationship with an American woman named Meg. Willy at first appears to be progressively open to his wife’s sexual awakening. However, he soon engages in a sexual relationship with her himself and his whole acceptance of the two women’s relationship is an act of objectification; he is simply titillated by it and nothing else.

This is a stylish and moving second feature from Wash Westmoreland, originally conceived in collaboration with his late husband and Still Alice director Richard Glatzer. He utilizes the gorgeous set-designs of Lisa Chugg and Nora Talmaier to showcase the claustrophobia of Colette’s existence during these years. The film is slightly let down by an over-bearing and cliched orchestral score, which attempts to telegraph ever emotional beat of the story. And there is the bizarre decision to have writing sequences in which the voice-over of the words Colette is writing is in English, but the words Knightley is writing in the scene is in French.  However, this fails to detract from the overall success of the film, in which Westmoreland delicately uses the story of France’s most famous female writer to show the changing nature of female autonomy in the 20^th Century.  

8/10