"Becoming Collette," however, is a mess. Also based on a true story, this is the early life of French writer Gabrielle Colette (Mathilda May), who is an innocent farm girl when the film begins. But when she catches the eye of a notorious Parisian rake, a publisher named Willy (Klaus Maria Brandauer), he takes her to the city and starts her off on a series of sexual adventures, which eventually lead to her becoming a popular writer of erotica.
It's enough that the film is dull and plodding, but the lead performances are pretty terrible. May is stiff and artificial, and Brandauer is practically asleep. Much better is Virginia Madsen (Huston's real-life wife), vibrant and compelling as Willy's main mistress, but she's not in enough of the film to rescue it.
"Becoming Colette" is rated R for considerable sex and nudity, along with some profanity, vulgarity and violence.