A gritty, glamorous biopic

Paula Fleri-Soler writes about Colette – a 2018 biographical drama film directed by Wash Westmoreland, from a screenplay by Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, based upon the life of the French novelist Colette. Keira Knightley is earning rave reviews as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the French author and 1948 Literature Nobel Prize Literature nominee. The film charts the course of Colette’s marriage to Henri Gauthier-Villars, known as Willy (Dominic West), a successful Parisian man of letters, as she moves from her childhood home in rural France to cosmopolitan life in Paris. Willy persuades Colette to write a novel, and thus Claudine is born. A semi-autobiographical novel about the titular character, Claudine is published under Willy’s name, and goes onto to become a massive success. On the strength of that success, Colette and Willy become the toast of Parisian society; an early 20th century power couple and go on to publish more books… Yet the more successful they become, the more Colette struggles to claim her ownership of the novels and her rightful place in literary history. “(Colette) was a woman well ahead of her time,” says Colette director and screenwriter Wash...