None of the relationships crackle in this portrait of the French novelist’s life.

Movies based on real people have one job: to be at least as interesting as the lives they portray. With a woman like Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, an early 20th-century writer best known for her erotic novels, that should have been an easy bar to clear.

We join Colette (Keira Knightley), as she was more widely known, and lover Willy (Dominic West) when she’s living in a small village in Burgundy, and he’s her city mouse counterpart. They marry, and he brings her to Paris, where Willy is the head of a publishing house dubbed “the Factory.” There, a team of writers crank out fiction, all of which is published under Willy’s name. When the writers run dry — most notably because they have not been paid — Colette takes up her pen and produces a series of semi-erotic novels about the adventures and misadventures of Claudine, a country girl who ends up in Paris. The novels may be based on Colette’s life, but Willy takes the credit.

That’s a story we’ve seen before: A female writer finds her voice, only to have it hidden. That’s not the only tale “Colette” tries to tell, though. As she becomes more worldly, her sexual tastes begin to shift. She has a fling with an American heiress (Caroline Boulton, with the most syrupy Southern accent this side of Scarlett O’Hara), then an extended relationship with Missy (Denise Gough), a member of the nobility. Missy causes scandal by wearing trousers and living a decidedly masculine life. It’s unclear if she’s transgender; all that’s said is that there “isn’t a word to describe her,” which there probably wasn’t during that time in Paris. [ . . . ]

Continue at WASHINGTON POST: ‘Colette’ review: Keira Knightley’s latest is based on a fascinating tale. But the movie doesn’t quite live up to it. – The Washington Post