2018 ( UK | USA | France | Hungary | Netherlands ) ( Biography, Drama, History )
Starring: Keira Knightley, Fiona Shaw, Dominic West
Director: Wash Westmoreland
Colette tells the incredible true story of how Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley), France’s most celebrated female novelist and actress, struggled to get her voice heard in the early 1900s. Colette was a pioneer in women’s rights and was an author who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature six years before her death in 1954. Colette’s husband, known as Willy in literary circles, was a dedicated libertine who enjoyed wedlock as long as it didn’t stop him playing around. Superbly played by Dominic West, Willy charms and cajoles his wife into accepting an open marriage. What’s harder for Colette to accept is letting Willy take credit for her writing, as he says in the film: “No one reads female writers”.
Watching Colette burst out of the shell Willy has trapped her in to seize the freedom to be heard as a woman gives the movie an exhilarating kick. Colette is a movie about Colette’s empowerment, a theme that rings timely and true in the current era of #MeToo.
(1hr 51min)