Keira Knightley does love her some period dramas. To be fair, Hollywood loves casting her in them because she does such a great job, earning acclaim for her performances in Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina, The Duchess, Atonement, and more. Her latest, Colette, debuted at Sundance earlier this year and instantly there was talk of Knightley entering the Oscar race. Now a new trailer for the literary drama gives us another look at Knightley as novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
Directed by Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice), the film centers on the French writer who would become known singularly as Colette. Beginning her life as a naïve young woman, she would eventually marry Willy (a sniveling Dominic West), a successful writer who convinced Colette, 14 years his junior, to ghostwrite a novel for him. The series of Claudine books she penned under Willy’s name would chart the sexual odyssey of its heroine, which also matched the journey Colette would find herself on. Success would cause professional and personal problems between the couple, as gender roles and societal norms are thrown into question.
This is a better trailer cut than the last one, which gave away far too much. Knightley appears to be in top form, and this is a film that could prove vital in terms of LGBTQ representation on the big screen. We don’t see many of these stories told from a historical perspective, and the chance to do so is just another reason to be excited.
Colette is in select cities now and continues to expand.
