Review of Colette (2018) by Philip P — 10 Dec 2018

"I can read you like the top line of an optometrist's chart.".

Colette is a mixed bag of being both your standard period drama (gorgeous costumes and production design) while telling a story that feels all the more timely in regards to today's conversations (bisexuality, transgender individuals, etc.). If nothing else, Colette shows this conversation about gender and gender fluidity has been ongoing for much longer than some might care to admit.

What is unfortunate about Wash "Still Alice" Westmoreland's adaptation of these true events is a lack of any real narrative drive which, oddly enough, is Colette's husband's first critique of her first "Claudine" novel. That said, it's not hard to appreciate that Westmoreland allows his stars in Keira Knightley and Dominic West (both solid to great in certain moments) to define their relationship as one of genuine love and affection before sending it off the rails as the film details some rather weird and ultimately complex interpersonal dynamics between the two of them. It's all rather fascinating in terms of being the topic of a dinner conversation after the fact, but in the moment it never engages to the degree one is truly emotionally invested in any aspect of Colette's life as presented.

Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer, and Rebecca Lenkiewicz's screenplay does feature some rather excellent dialogue and the glaze of an interesting commentary on the societal expectations of men at the turn of the century and the glaring differences between what was thought of as a gentleman and what is actually a gentle man permeates throughout, but is never fully fleshed out. In an early scene Knightley's Colette tells her mother (played by Mrs. Dursley herself, Fiona Shaw) that marriage and her life up until that point has been "nothing like she imagined" which comes to be rather ironic given Colette went on to turn every expectation she likely had for her life on its head. It's only too bad the film as a whole couldn't accomplish this as well.

Turn of the century Paris was crazy though, y'all.