Colette: The right to write

We meet Colette (Keira Knightley), the girl who would become the foremost French female writer, in 1892. She lives with her parents in the French countryside. We first meet Uncle Willy (Domonic West) when he comes to dinner. We first realize they're lovers when they hook up in the hayloft after dessert.

The couple soon marry. He's a writer/publisher who can't write. She's a writer who doesn't know it. Soon he's publishing her stories under his name. Until she rebels and strikes out on her own.

While the movie could be considered just another story of a man stealing from his talented wife and hogging the accolades, we have to step back and remember that readers of the time were not clamoring to read female writers. We also see how Willy shaped her early stories, published them, and promoted them.

In many ways, Colette was a woman whose lifestyle didn't catch on until the sexual revolution of the 1970s. Her escapades spice up this film about a gal who spends hours behind a desk with a fountain pen in her hands.