Review: Colette is the queer period-piece we've been waiting for

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Who didn't see this film and immediately want to move to France to be an actress, author and have a beautiful gay life (once she, you know, leaves that asshole)?

We love Kiera Knightly and how much she casually throws around being banned from prom for sharing a kiss with a girl, getting romantic with a statue, rallying for a lesbian Bend it Like Beckham. A true sapphic warrior, and, in my eyes, a lesbian icon (I am fully aware she's not gay, but that's not what makes you a gay icon, calm it down).

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I had no idea who Colette was, but, weirdly, I did know who Mathilde de Morny (thanks to my lesbian history lessons on Instagram one morning). We had bisexuality, transgenderism all in one movie ... LGBT should be raving.

I am aware how late I am to the party, I promise I watched it when it came out, I sat down to write the review.... then I wrote the title and called it a night.

Honestly, though, I liked that it wasn't wrapped up in this sexual discovery of her being queer, it was about her finding herself when all she was at the start was a wife no one cared about, not even really her husband. She grows up and out of her first love, becomes more self-assured in who she is and what she wants, and, ultimately, grows out of the role of being the wife of 'Willy' (real name: Henry Gauthier-Villars).

But how true is was the portrayal? Well, Collette was very openly queer, and had a realtionship with Matilde de Morny, who was Napolean the III's niece, who presented masculinely and can clearly be described as (potentially; allegedly) transgender. Toni Bentley once stated, in her book Sisters of Salome, that Missy “comported herself as a man, padding out her small feet with socks to fit her men’s shoes, wearing overalls and three-piece suits, a short haircut, and a rounded center that betrayed no breasts. She even tried making herself a mustache from her poodle's tale.”

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They were very open in their affair, as, while on stage in a performance of Cleopatra, Missy, dressed as a man, and Colette shared a kiss in front of an audience who were suddenly outraged. There was an outcry of "down with the dykes!" while they pelted the two with garlic and coins. This doesn't deter the liberal Collete, though. I mean, what can you expect from the writer of Claudine at School about a schoolgirl's sexual awakening.

Kiera Knightley commented to Variety: "Colette was questioning the idea of gender and the idea of what was naturally feminine as opposed to society’s take on being feminine."

And intellligent woman who wasn't afraid to be honest about what she felt.

This is just one of the things that made Colette so scandalous. She dared to write about sex for the French public in that time period when repressed feelings was the fashion. I'm glad we recieved a movie about her, and I will definitely be reading her books in future.



Read more on Colette:
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/01/221361/colette-movie-true-story-sex-life
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Colette
https://www.mirror.co.uk/film/inside-colettes-real-affair-missy-13839382