Synopsis
After marrying a successful Parisian writer known commonly as Willy, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him. She pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named Claudine, sparking a bestseller and a cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels.
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Cast
- Keira KnightleyColette
- Dominic WestWilly
- Denise GoughMissy
- Fiona ShawSido
- Robert PughJules
- Eleanor TomlinsonGeorgie Raoul-Duval
- Ray PanthakiVeber
- Dickie BeauWague
- Jake GrafGaston De Caillavet
- Polina LitvakLily
Recommendations
- 80
The Guardian
Wash Westmoreland’s Colette is exhilarating, funny, inspiring and (remember: corsets!) gorgeous, too. - 80
Screen Daily
Although director Wash Westmoreland tackles several serious subjects — sexual liberation, the repression of women’s voices, the power of art to change society — the movie has such a playful spirit that the talking points go down smoothly. - 80
Variety
Less stuffy literary biopic than ever-relevant female-empowerment saga, Colette ranks as one of the great roles for which Keira Knightley will be remembered. - 75
IndieWire
Colette is a costume drama for people who have yet to figure out that they love costume dramas. It’s fleet enough after that first act, and the squeezed plotting of its second half ensures the story never gets too long in the tooth. - 75
The Playlist
If only more period pieces these days were as finely tuned and accessibly pleasurable as Westmoreland’s film. - 75
Vanity Fair
I love how open and casual this film is about Colette’s budding queerness, how it eschews any awkward coming out or pains-of-the-closet stuff. Instead it simply revels in Colette’s sexual and romantic freedom, suggesting that it was just that looseness, that liberation that gave her writing such verve. - 75
Slant Magazine
It's the film's concerted emphasis on Colette's ambivalent nature and desires that reveals her to be an artist just ahead of her time, fighting against, yet seduced by, her present. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Colette is a satisfyingly conventional biopic about a highly unconventional woman.
