Keira Knightley Delivers An Oscar Worthy Performance In Biopic ‘Colette’ [Sundance Review]

A real surprise at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Wash Westmoreland‘s “Colette,” the movie is destined to be a crowd pleaser in the truest sense of the term. Focusing on Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the Parisian author responsible for her husband’s literary success, the film has a towering performance from Keira Knightley, who plays Colette with such warmth and fiery feminism, that it would be hard not to make woman’s past run parallel with today’s world.

The film’s strengths lie in Westmoreland’s tackling of feminist art but more importantly the sexual freedom that could arise with such a venture. Colette’s marriage to the well-off Willy (a slyly playful and equally up to the task Dominic West), is a challenge to both her feminist ideals and definition of what love truly means. He is an author of somewhat limited talent that takes his wife’s ideas to write about the fictional Claudine, a character filled with sexual freedom and uproarious adventures that spark a fury in the French literary world. Of course, after the initial success, Willy wants more books to be written, and endeavors to build not just an empire around this promiscuous and daring female character, but to solidify the literary reputation he’s been craving for years.

Given the dramatic fireworks one would expect from such a chewy role, Knightley nails it with a performance that deserves awards attention. The continuous evolution of Colette requires subtle and nuanced changes in this demanding role and Knightley more than meets the challenge with some of the most exhilarating work of her career. Her chemistry with West is the heart of the film, which if done with other, less ideal, performers might have fallen down a trap of cliches and melodrama. West’s role is more difficult task considering he plays a man that loves his wife but also takes advantage of the socially unequal climate to take advantage of her writing talents. He comes off as both likeable and, at times, infuriatingly self-absorbed to the point of challenging the audience’s sympathy for him. If Knightley is the core that holds the film together, West’s performance cannot be discounted as anything but a winning turn.

Of course, Willy’s infidelities, due, no doubt, to the insecurities that come in having a wife that is just plain more talented than him, is the trigger that is needed to make Colette strive for her own independence and happiness. It’s a good thing that Westmoreland refuses to narrow their marriage down to simplistic choices and easy answers. The fact that he makes their union very hard to pin down or describe makes the film all the more fascinating.

With such a story, familiarity does tend to sneak in here and there. “Colette” has a strong woman trying to separate herself from the pack and explores the gender inequalities of the time, but the fact that Westmoreland concocts his film as a rise and fall kind of biopic hampers the artistry down a notch. Ditto goes for Thomas Ades‘ safely packaged score. Meanwhile, the cinematography by Giles Nuttgens is almost too glossy and pristine, and recalls an Oscar-bait vehicle from the 1990s. Nevertheless “Colette” is a film that goes down very smoothly, rarely lagging in its 111 minutes and always seemingly sure-footed and confident enough to trust both its audiences intelligence and sense of adventure. If only more period pieces these days were as finely tuned and accessibly pleasurable as Westmoreland’s film. [B]

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