Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is a young woman from the rural Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye at the end of the 19th century, who begins an affair with Willy.

Willy eventually brings Colette to Paris as his bride, with socialites expressing surprise a libertine like him would marry.

With Willy increasingly unable to pay his writers, he asks Colette to write a novel based on her school stories.

Faced with his first true hit, Willy tells his publisher a sequel is coming, purchases a country house, and locks Colette in a room there to force her to write.

As Colette and Willy become an increasingly recognized couple, she attracts the notice of Georgie Raoul-Duval, a Louisiana debutante, and they begin an affair.

They begin dancing and develop an act at the Moulin Rouge that draws a morally outraged response when they kiss onstage.

Willy cites the act as a financial disaster and sells all rights to the Claudine books for 5,000 francs without Colette's knowledge.

Colette becomes recognized as a writer in her own right, beginning with The Vagabond, published under her byline, about her music hall experience.

[6] Deadline announced on May 23, 2017, that Denise Gough, Fiona Shaw, Robert Pugh, and Rebecca Root had joined Knightley and West in the film.

The website critical consensus reads, "Formally familiar but a brilliant match for its lead, Colette is a thoroughly entertaining biopic and an overdue testament to Keira Knightley's underrated gifts.

"[19] According to reviewer Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, "Mr. Westmoreland [film director of Colette] ... wanted to make a liberation story.

Club, was less enthused, writing "Keira Knightley's charms fail to save the timely, tepid biopic Colette" and graded it "C+".