Colette

Very well done, interesting. A nice period piece. However, at the end the director states, after I thought I was watching a movie that was historically accurate, that he had changed several characters and other aspects to make them more contemporary (meaning: what he thinks the way things ought to have been 100+ years ago, vs reality) re: gender, sexual preference, racial matters, etc. As such, the movie to a degree is fiction; a lie. Which is sad, as it detracts from the ground breaking path that Colette lived.

This movie is truly beautiful to watch. Elegant period dress, recreations of turn-of-the-century Paris inside and out that had me wondering how they were achieved. And the acting by the two principles is truly first-rate.

Keira Knightley has it all and does it all as the title character. A truly beautiful performance, including some line-reading that was worthy of Shakespeare - which this screenplay most certainly is not. (See below.) She held me riveted in many a scene.

Not far behind her in the acting dept is Dominic West, who turns Willy into a real if very flawed human being. Modern literary history sees him through Colette's later eyes, so it dismisses him terribly, but here he comes off as a real charmer.

So what's not to like? A great deal, unfortunately. The script, at least through the first half of the movie, is paint by numbers: very obvious, very flat, very unrevealing. Though Knightley clearly could have conveyed anything, it doesn't do a good job of helping us to understand the very complex woman we see. Too often, it sounds like a summary of a Wikipedia biography of the author. What made her so interesting? What made her tick? What made her so remarkable? The script gives us no clue. Is it because the script was written by two men and, third billing, one woman? I don't buy that. Madame Bovary was written by a man, as were many other great female characters in literature. Perhaps the problem lies, at least in part, with the directing as well.

If you want to see this movie, I would wait until you can watch it at home, so you can pause it to do other things when you get bored or just want a break. Having to sit through all 111 minutes in a theater without a break was too much for me - though it did get more involving near the end. Kudos to Knightley and West, certainly, for doing a great job with their roles. But this was too much like a beautifully costumed and filmed history lesson, and not enough like an engaging story.

My main criticism of this film is that in my view iconic non English characters rarely work if portrayed by actors of another nationality. I suspect I may have enjoyed this interesting story based on the real life experiences of .possibly the most famous female French .author Colette more as a French film with French actors. I just think it may have lost some of the subtlety of language and atmosphere The actors Keira Knightley as Colette and Dominic West as her husband Wily are good in their roles but imagine for example Beatrice Potter portrayed by Audrey Tattou or Agatha Christie starring Marion Cotillard it would be odd to my mind also and fail to successfully capture their Englishness . In this movie the dialogue is totally English but when Colette is writing, she writes in French, perhaps I'm too picky , it just seemed a little strange. The story of a husband taking the fame and literary credit for his wife's brilliant writing talent and the wife's compliance to hold a marriage together was told earlier this year far far more effectively in "The Wife" starring Glenn Close. This film is about Colette but at times seems dominated and more about Wily the husband they seem to me at times both totally unstable and incompatible especially sexually and emotionally. Willy, fourteen years older than his wife and one of the most notorious libertines in Paris, introduced Colette into avant-garde intellectual and artistic circles while engaging in sexual affairs and encouraging her own lesbian It's worth seeing , not great or an award contender as far as I'm concerned but a very interesting story about a fascinating character who wrote the famous Claudine novels and of course her famous 1944 novel Gigi, which inspired the much loved Lerner and Loewe musical of the same name.

The fascinating life of Colette, one of the important figures in both literature and gender definition, is brought to the screen by director Wash Westmoreland ('Still Alice', 'Quinceañera', 'Totally Gay') who also wrote the screenplay with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The result is a visually fine period piece with excellent performances by Keira Knightley and Dominic West yet somehow falls short of its potential by focusing on excesses.

The true story is that of the gifted country girl Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley) who is swept off her feet by writer Henry Gautier-Villars (aka Willy), taken to Paris where Willy's philandering and writing needs are a source of contention with his publisher. Discovering that his wife Colette has a gift for writing, Willy talks her into being a ghostwriter for him, successfully publishing a series of books about the life of 'Claudine' - a reflection of Colette's real life. Riding on the success of the venture, Colette begins to acknowledge her desire for female partners, sharing one wealthy American Matilde (Sloan Thompson) with Willy and finally pairing with the wealthy Missy (Denise Gough) in her decision to 'make it on her own' both as a writer and as performer with Missy. To everyone's surprise she uses her fame to advance acceptance of same sex gender identification, unique fashion, and literature by female authors.

The film is enhanced by the musical score by Thomas Adès and the cinematography by Giles Nuttgens. Minor roles are well performed and the overall recreation of Paris at eh turn of the century is excellent. For some reason, despite Keira Knightley's fine acting, the film fails to convince fully, but for the importance of this story on many levels it is a film very much worth viewing.

This is based on a true story and an interesting one at that. The only thing was the story was a little slow and one paced. Even the sex scenes were quite dull and added little to the film.

The highlight was Keira Knightlys Performance in the main role, she played it superbly.