Colette

Starring: Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Robert Pugh, Sloan Thompson, Arabella Weir, Mate Haumann, Ray Panthaki
Directed by: Wash Westmoreland
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Colette (Keira Knightley) writes popular French novels under her husband's (Dominic West) name. When she wants to receive credit for her contributions, it adds strain to an already difficult marriage

Review:

Tim: I have to admit, I was a little surprised I felt as disconnected from Colette as I felt throughout the duration of the movie. It's a perfectly decent film, but I never felt any emotional connection or investment in the characters or story. It felt like a completely safe, generic movie. We've had so many period pieces over the years and while this one does highlight the influential efforts of a female French writer, it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself. That hurts the movie- the realization that while you're watching it that it will soon fade in your memory. This movie really needed to make a bigger impact on us.

The film didn't do a good job of setting us up with the expectation that this movie was important to watch. I'm slightly embarrassed that I didn't realize this was a true story until at least an hour into the film. Some of that is my own American ignorance- I'd never heard of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. However, the film bears some responsibility as well. "Based on a true story" would have helped, but anything to tell the audience that this woman mattered to literature, to history- something setting the stage was required and we didn't get that. So, for a long stretch of the film, I idly wondered if this was a true story or fictional. By the time I googled it and discovered Colette's influence, I was already fairly disconnected from the story.

It would have helped to have been primed on the significance of Colette, but this wouldn't solve all the film's problems. It's a difficult movie to watch. Colette is a fascinating character, but it takes so long for her to hit her stride. For most of the movie, she's a doormat, taken advantage by her husband and the society that subjugates women. This is perhaps the most important aspect of the film and it takes infuriatingly long for this to become fully clear. The movie could have hit this much harder, could have reminded us that while women have enjoyed significant societal advances since the time period of this film, they are still not positioned on equal footing with their male counterparts. I wanted that to be stressed, to be put into the spotlight. The film goes halfway, but it doesn't do a good enough job of making the impact of this felt. That was frustrating to me, because it's a powerful message and the delivery wasn't done nearly well enough.

Keira Knightley gives a strong performance as Colette- that's absolutely a strength of the film. However, there is a little sense of her playing it safe, directly in her wheelhouse. Knightley is always an underrated actress, but it feels like she's made so many of these period pieces that they start to blend together. She's good, but her presence also made this feel like "yet another", rather than something unique. Dominic West gave a very strong performance as her husband, but it's hard to feel good about it because his character is so unlikable and awful. He gets so much screen time and while West is really good in the role, it's not exactly fun to watch him. Knightley and West interact well together, but I can't say I was enthralled with either character. The supporting cast was decent, but there's not a lot of room for anyone to truly emerge as a standout.

I know Colette got positive reviews from critics. I applaud the message. It was great to see a strong female protagonist, it was great to highlight a healthy lesbian relationship that suffered prejudice in a bigoted society. It was valuable for me to learn about Colette's influence on French literature and women's rights. However, just because a movie does good things and has a good message doesn't mean the film itself was effective as it could have been. The movie is a bit too long at 1 hour, 51 minutes and it never delivers the powerful hit that it needed to. This is the kind of film that should have been good enough to grab a couple of Academy Award nominations, and it came away with zero. It was never a contender. I believe that it's because despite the best intentions of everyone involved, Wash Westmoreland's film simply isn't good enough.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Still Alice, The Imitation Game, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice