In a game of seduction, never fall in love.
The son of a courtesan retreats into a fantasy world after being forced to end his relationship with the older woman who educated him in the ways of love.
Genre(s): Romance
Runtime: 86 minutes
Rating: 6.4/10 (1,129 votes)
Release Date: 10 February 2009
Country: UK, France, Germany
Languages: English
Company: Bill Kenwright Films
Sound: Dolby Digital
MPAA: Rated R for some sexual content and brief drug use.
Director(s): Stephen Frears
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Producer(s):
Raphaël Benoliel - co-producer
Raphaël Benoliel - line producer: France
Simon Fawcett - executive producer
Marco Gilles - associate producer: Germany
Bastian Griese - co-producer
Andras Hamori - producer
Christopher Hampton - executive producer
François Ivernel - executive producer
Bill Kenwright - producer
Daniel Mann - associate producer: Germany
Cameron McCracken - executive producer
Thom Mount - producer
Ralf Schmitz - co-producer
Tracey Seaward - producer
Richard Temple - executive producer
Writer(s):
Christopher Hampton - (screenplay)
Colette - (novels "Chéri" and "The Last of Chéri")
Cast:
Michelle Pfeiffer - Lea de Lonval
Kathy Bates - Madame Peloux
Rupert Friend - Cheri
Felicity Jones - Edmee
Frances Tomelty - Rose
Anita Pallenberg - La Copine
Harriet Walter - La Loupiote
Iben Hjejle - Marie Laure
Bette Bourne - Baronne
Gaye Brown - Lilli
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Raphaël Benoliel - co-producer
Raphaël Benoliel - line producer: France
Simon Fawcett - executive producer
Marco Gilles - associate producer: Germany
Bastian Griese - co-producer
Andras Hamori - producer
Christopher Hampton - executive producer
François Ivernel - executive producer
Bill Kenwright - producer
Daniel Mann - associate producer: Germany
Cameron McCracken - executive producer
Thom Mount - producer
Ralf Schmitz - co-producer
Tracey Seaward - producer
Richard Temple - executive producer
Writer(s):
Christopher Hampton - (screenplay)
Colette - (novels "Chéri" and "The Last of Chéri")
Cast:
Michelle Pfeiffer - Lea de Lonval
Kathy Bates - Madame Peloux
Rupert Friend - Cheri
Felicity Jones - Edmee
Frances Tomelty - Rose
Anita Pallenberg - La Copine
Harriet Walter - La Loupiote
Iben Hjejle - Marie Laure
Bette Bourne - Baronne
Gaye Brown - Lilli
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Posted on: June 3, 2009
Posted in: Romance
June 27th, 2009
You can't really tell as far as Stephen Frears is concerned. After thesensational "The Queen" another film that is only slightly moretolerable than the dreadful "Mrs Henderson Presents" Here Rupert Friendin the title role is a delightful throwback to Oscar Wilde territory.You understand Pfeiffer loosing her head for him but not why he looseshis for her. She's certainly beautiful but lifeless. She looks moredistant than ever, struggling to find the tone of her performance andI'm afraid she never does. Not a glimpse of the Pfeiffer from "The AgeOf Innocence" or even "The Fabulous Baker Boys" No sense of period orof intention. Kathy Bates is an annoying over the top caricature butRuper Friend is the oasis that makes the aridity of this nonsense trulybearable. I had seen him before, most remarkably, in another story withanother older woman, Joan Plowright in "Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont"He is an actor with, clearly, a few aces up his sleeve and I bet hewill dazzle us with other surprises in the future. Here he's badlyserved by his director, co-stars costume designer, make up and hair andin spite of that he emerges as the only reason to see this film.
June 27th, 2009
'Chéri' is a product of the great English team that created thebrilliant Choderlos de Laclos adaptation 'Dangerous Liasons' (1988),Christopher Hampton the writer, as prolific as he is adept at turningFrench texts into English movies or plays, and Stephen Frears thedirector, who brought us such greatness as (to name a few) 'The Queen,''Dirty pretty Things,' 'The Grifters,' 'Prick Up Your Ears', and thenovelistically rich bisexual story of Pakistanis and Cockneys inLondon, 'My Beautiful Laundrette'. This new film moreover is graced bythe presence of Michelle Pfeiffer in the central part of Colette'saging courtesan Léa de Lonval. Pfeiffer had the pivotal role of Madamede Tourvel in 'Dangerous Liaisons.' Again this is a movie where Frenchpeople speak English, but that worked in the audacious and sumptuousFrears/Hampton 'Dangerous Liaisons,' and it works again here.
It's two decades later and Hampton, Frears, and Pfeiffer, though theyshow no sign of waning gifts, don't quite bring back the magic; butstill 'Chéri,' adapted from two 1920's short novels by Colette (not asstrong material as de Laclos' epistolary novel), is nicely paced andgorgeous to look at, and Michelle is a wondrously beautifulfifty-year-old and still a delicious actress. Rupert Friend, as Léa'syoung beau Fred Peloux, nicknamed Chéri, isn't too hard on the eyeseither as the young man, though he's a bit difficult to accept as a19-year-old at first (then the study jumps forward to six years later).Friend is actually around 27, and for this role, a decidedlydecadent-looking 27 at that.
But decadent is what the part calls for. Chéri himself is the son of anextremely rich courtesan. Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates, in elaborate late19th-century garb, playing broadly enough to be Lady Bracknell in 'TheImportance of Being Earnest') has spoiled the boy rotten, he iscompletely lazy, and she turns him over to Léa for training. This hemight have got, except that they belie all but dime novel expectationsand fall madly in love with each other and remain together for sixyears, whereupon Chéri suddenly decides to get married, to Edmée(Felicity Jones), the daughter of another courtesan who has done welloff her lovers, and from then on things get complicated. All throughthe six years of the relationship Léa so adores Chéri, she hasn't thedetachment to train him and just lets him do what he wants.
Art Nouveau curlicues swirl throughout this beautifully designed film,and Pfeiffer's looks and costumes are marvels of new deco tastes: thestory runs from the end of the Belle Époque to WWI. Relationships withseveral servants become important as they are chatted up and asked foradvice, which sometimes they are smart enough not to give. Urbangardens are absolutely lush in the nineteenth-century manner, and allthe visuals manage to be impossibly rich without being too distracting.But it all begins and ends with the casting, and though Bates'broadness might be obtrusive, it isn't, because her role is relativelysmall. Rupert Friend is wonderfully pale and sickly looking, yet sexy.Chéri is spoiled, and a bit androgynous, as indicated by his constantdesire to wear Léa's pearl necklace, which he says looks just as goodon him.
Chéri soon tires of his wife, who at eighteen seems indecently young tohim. We know what's going to happen. The only flaw of this enjoyableadaptation is that it happens too fast and the emotional complicationsdon't come across as powerfully as they might, especially when we thinkof the ending of 'Dangerous Liaisons' and Glenn Close's devastatingcollapse in the theater. In his effort to fuse together the two ColetteChéri novels Hampton and Frears rush through the latter stages of thestory. They also have a bit of trouble with tone. Having started out ina light comic vein, they aren't altogether able to modulate into thedarker moods of emotional confusion, disenchantment, and fear of aging.
The latter is the issue Léa faces all along. Michelle Pfeiffer's lovelybut no longer young face, photographed in complimentary lights and thensomewhat more cruel ones, in itself tells a rich story that compensatesfor shortcomings in this generally buoyant and entertaining adaptation.
June 28th, 2009
Amidst a sea of "transfomers" on the screen comes the lustrous andelegant film CHERI with a tremendous cast of actors and dialog thatjumps off the page from the talented Christopher Hampton. Just when youthought there wouldn't be an intelligent adult fare on the summer 2009screen, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates light up the film with scenesthat are so delicious and wicked in forming character and setting upthe love story that follows. The costumes, french locations and therich tapestry of elegance which Stephen Frears paints on the screen inCHERI is breathtaking with a touch of pathos thrown into the mix as Ms.Pfeiffer transforms her character into a heroine that will remaintimeless. The last frame and the final scene of the film will long beremembered. Merci pour CHERI, Monsieur Frears.
July 1st, 2009
There are several very good reasons to see Cheri, directed by StephenFrears and written by Christopher Hampton from the novel by Colette.It's a beautifully made costume drama, shot in some wonderfullocations. It's well scripted (although it does wander off track andget a little rambling in the middle)and it's moderately entertaining,although probably only for a limited audience. But the best reason ofall is to see some really interesting performances from an array ofpredominantly female actors.
Michelle Pfeiffer makes a very welcome and long overdue return tocenter stage, as Lea de Lonval, a Belle Epoch (ie turn of the 20thcentury) courtesan in Paris. Lea is ready to retire from herprofession, the business of sex, and takes up with the son of a fellowcourtesan, the beautiful, languid Cheri (meaning Darling), not formoney this time but for love. Pfeiffer is radiant in the part, andwatching her is a sheer pleasure.
Cheri is played by Rupert Friend, who keeps popping up on my radar asone of the more interesting and talented of the young male actorsaround. He seems to be taking his career slowly but carefully, pickingsome interesting roles. I first spotted him in Pride and Prejudice, aswicked Mr Wickham, after which he was excellent in Mrs Palfrey at theClaremont, opposite Joan Plowright. I thought at that time how muchlike Orlando Bloom he looks, but luckily he is a far better actor, andwill, I think, ultimately have a longer shelf life.
Also fabulous is Kathy Bates as Cheri's mother. It is her plan to marryhim off to Edmee, the young daughter of a fellow courtesan, taking himaway from his true love Lea (his senior by many years) that sets thescene for what will become a tragedy. The courtesans were hugely rich,but lived lives of isolated splendor. Not accepted by polite society,they turned to each other for social interaction, a small, intense andrather incestuous circle. Bates' Madam Peloux needs to marry Cheri offbut has limited options. Edmee, the daughter of another old rival, isavailable. Both are an only child set to inherit large sums of money.Business takes precedence, marriage is a joining of fortunes and lovemeans nothing, leaving everyone unhappy, Edmee, Cheri and Lea.
Perhaps almost as interesting – or even more so – than this movie'sstory, is the story of Colette herself. The novelist lived from 1873 to1954, married three times, had many lovers of both genders includingher stepson, played the music halls, wrote an opera with Ravel, ran ahospital during WW1 and helped her Jewish friends survive during WW2.She wrote some fifty novels including Gigi, (made into a play and anaward winning musical), and is often referred to as one of France'sgreatest writers.
And I can't review this movie without saying how quite wonderful it is,for once, to see an older woman entangled with a sexy younger man, andhow rarely we get to see that on screen. Time and time again, we seequite ridiculous age gaps between male stars and much, much youngerwomen. Here, Pfeiffer and Friend make the opposite work perfectly. Iappreciate that costume drama has a fairly limited audience, and thismovie is certainly not perfect, but personally – I loved it!!
July 10th, 2009
Even if the French and the English are maintaining a grudging tolerancefor one another, there's no reason an English filmmaker shouldn't (atleast) attempt an adaptation of a French source material. In theory,Frears should have been able to create some magic with "Chéri," basedon Colette's slim duo of novels "Chéri" and "The Last of Chéri,"particularly considering that he'd be working once again with one ofhis earlier stars, Michelle Pfeiffer. But there's no way around it:Frears' "Chéri" is just, well too English. Pfeiffer stars as Léa deLonval, an aging courtesan who takes up with a much younger lover,nicknamed Chéri (Rupert Friend), the son of one of her former rivals,Madame Peloux (totally miscast with Kathy Bates). Léa doesn't intend tobuild a relationship with Chéri; she takes him on as a diversion, afling. But after six years, she gets used to having him around, andshe's dismayed! (very English response) when she learns that his motherhas decided to marry him off to Edmee , the pretty young daughter ofanother one of their old-time colleagues. Léa can't, of course, expressthat dismay openly: As a professional, she's built a reputation as afabulous lover who's also cool about love. But the loss of Chéri forcesher to reckon with her own loneliness — and with the fact that she'sgetting older, if no less beautiful, by the day. "Chéri" was clearlymade with a great deal of meticulousness. A classy screenplay. Thecinematography gives the movie a flawless polish. The pre-1920scostumes are just right, putting Pfeiffer in an assortment ofscrumptious dresses. The production design sought out all the properart nouveau details, including Léa's opulent bed. However, "Chéri" is aperfect example of a movie that has all the details right and thevibrations completely wrong. Despite the movie's exquisite setting andthe fact that it was filmed on location in France, the movie is allperfection and no luxury. It moves along like an assembly line when itneeds to be languorous. Hampton's adaptation fails to capture the sharpwit, and the subtle melancholy, of the source material. The whole movieis too jolly and jaunty, and while Colette's writing may be manythings, "jolly" and "jaunty" — at least in the English sense — itnever was. The casting is not perfect: Colette's Léa is a rosy, robustfigure, and Pfeiffer is too delicate. But that's not the chief problem.Pfeiffer is beautiful here, but she is stiff. Her line delivery isstatic and stagy; she's all composure and no fire. Friend, as her youngparamour, comes off a bit better: He has an almost girlish beauty, andhe's good at registering nuances of bewilderment and joy that Leabrings out in him. Nevertheless, on film, these two lovers do not havethe spark, or the casual sensuality, to give the story the zest itneeds.
July 13th, 2009
Well worn out tale about a boy/young man and his long term affair witha mature woman, in this case a rich, retired French prostitute. Howmany times are they going to film this version of the oldMay/September(pick your months)romance, all the while trying to make itas fresh as the first time told so many years ago? After hundreds ofversions, I wish they would stop. It has been done to death. I wasbored after the first 20 minutes and it did not change for me. This wasa draggy version with not much sensible reasoning to anything, and thesame type of stylish but over-scripted scenes just went on and on andon with no interesting variation to them. This tale has surely beendone much better many times.
The film was beautifully shot, with wonderful period sets andcostuming. The acting was mostly noteworthy, especially that of themarvelous Kathy Bates, who played the spoiled, selfish and immatureboy's loving and cheerful mother. Michelle Pfeiffer played the retired"courtesan" lover with her usual reserved detachment, but her agedwatery and bloodshot eyes throughout made me think she was perhaps tooold for the role. This movie was the type of vehicle that used to bemade for Julie Christie forty or so years ago, as it displayed Pfeifferadoringly from every angle like she was the Mona Lisa. Just like thoseold Christie films, this indulgent style has seen its day and is nowoutdated.
I attended this film to please my wife, but will never see this sameold story again no matter if Stanley Kubrick comes back from the deadto film it and my wife threatens to leave me if I don't go with her.I've had it. Put this story out to pasture with some dignity left likeyou would do with an old horse……………… please?
July 14th, 2009
During their idle moments or romantic longing, the filmmaker employsthe flashback to show how both Cheri(Rupert Friend) and Lea(MichellePfeiffer) are never far from each other's minds. He's twenty-five;she's forty-nine, old enough to be, you know. A longtime friend/rivalof his mother, Cheri knew the prostitute as "Nunu" before she becamehis lover. Relegated to the backstory, by omitting any dramatization oftheir former roles as adult and child, "Cheri" is complicit in itsendorsement of this relationship, although the nickname the boy coinedfor Lea does at least acknowledge the momentous threshold that the oldassociates embarked on when their relationship turned from maternal tophysical. An arranged marriage orchestrated by Cheri's mother(and Lea'sone-time rival) Mme. Peloux(Kathy Bates), however, ends their six-yearrun, and on the boy's wedding day, the diegesis becomes a rememberingone, as each lover conjures up the other at their most beautiful. Evenin the world of courtesans, as in so-called polite society, Oedipalrelationships are thwarted by too many factors that love simply can'tovercome. But since the film makes judicious use of the flashback, theaudience identifies with this impossible love. This adaptation ofColette's two semi-autobiographical novels "Cheri"(1920), and "Le finde Cheri"(1926) sutures itself(Lea's flashbacks are always of Cheri asa man, not a boy), but the sutures aren't so foolproof that the loveaffair isn't up for a little critical scrutinization. The next timethat Lea reminisces about Cheri, her idyllic abstraction of romancebecomes flawed by a preceding flashback of another cross-generationalcouple whom she had met in Mme. Peloux's orchard. Described by herfriend/rival as "the happy couple", Lea is confronted by a grotesquemirror of her own relationship with Cheri. The happy couple's disparategap in age borders on sexual perversity, and projects a version of theoriginal relationship that Lea had with Cheri during the boy'sformative years. This mother/son dynamic, made discreet by Lea'sability to project a facade of timelessness, forces the well-maintainedcourtesan to reflect that her sex bomb years are finite andfast-approaching its expiration date. In her two-fold flashback,Cheri's bedroom eyes are staring back at not just his significantother, but a mother figure as well, to her dismay.
A wife in name only, Edmee(Felicity Jones) understands Cheri, the childof a whore, as she is one too, when the young girl concurs with hisobservance of retrospective hindsight that they were orphaned by theirrespective matriarchal libertines. With this admission, "Cheri"overstates its impetus for the self-described foundling's attractiontowards Lea. But stripping Mme. Peloux's familial title so formallyserves the specific function of recasting her in non-Oedipal terms.Since the complex that Sigmund Freud developed can't work withouttriangulation; can't work without the presence of a father(who could beany number of his mother's johns) to signify the mother he wants tof***. Dictated by heterogeneous rules that a subculture entails, Mme.Peloux acts against the nature of a parent when she hands over her sonto a woman of motherly proportions who can't be trusted to act in aplatonic capacity. She does son, in a vicarious sense where Lea canactualize all the physical fantasies that Peloux may harbor, but resistpursuing, due to the technicality of blood. Neither mother(in her son'sestimation), nor lover, she has no tangible role in Cheri's life. Thefelicitous manner in which she dispenses information about thenewlyweds' conjugality(she tauntingly remarks to Lea on the weather inItaly, site of her lover's honeymoon) seems derived from envy. Althoughthe union was financially motivated, it doesn't seem to be the basis ofMme. Peloux's campaign to humiliate Lea, since no stern admonitionagainst threatening the compounded wealth between the children ofwhores are never made. After six years of vicarious satiation by Lea'ssexual exploits with her son, through the vehicle of disparagingrhetoric, she reminds the courtesan that she's aging and turns herson's lover back into a mother. Cheri knows it too. While Lea makestravel arrangements over the phone, the young man observes her througha crack in the door. Unaware of being monitored, the audience suppliestheir own flashback through Cheri's eyes, recalling scenes in which theboy saw her Lea's colleagues in restaurants and opium dens. They lookedold.
July 19th, 2009
The Classic Cinema in Elsternwick (Melbourne) Australia go to a certainamount of trouble with movie previews. So yesterday with Cheri we had aviolinist playing in the cinema before the preview session, acomplimentary afternoon tea.. normally a box of cakes and goodies (butonly a single one yesterday), a range of teas in yesterday's case (nocoffee). In the past a glass of champagne has been offered andsometimes there are lucky seats with prizes under them.
So perhaps no coffee yesterday was a forerunner of what was to come.The list of cons is sadly far greater than the pros
CONS The relationship between Michelle Pfeiffers character and RupertFriends character is I am sorry to say more like Aunty and nephew.There's a passion missing here. Are they out lunching or enjoying otherpleasures? No it's all indoors and not very exciting to watch at all.Ms Pfeiffer has wonderful hair, carries her age well (50 is not old),has perhaps nice back assuming no body doubles. But for me neither sheor her character are not warm enough or sensual enough. In fact thelady I sat next to a cinema had more ooh la la. And she was a payingcustomer like us! And on the plus side of 60. Rupert Friend as someonehere alluded to was too Olivia Bloom like, foppish almost gay if youlike. His dark hair and pale skin gave him a very unhealthy allure.
Set in pre WW1 Paris and France I was looking forward to a variety ofold veteran cars (only 3 in the whole show… perhaps the vehiclebudget was limited.. surely there must be more veteran cars in France).The Edwardian style fashions I love but for these give me the GreatRace 1965 style. Sadly there was no Mademsoielle Dubois here (NatalieWood) to carry this off yet the period was the same.
One of the problems with Cheri is it lacked oxygen, location,recreations of pre WW1 France, any sense of movement timewise andromance on any level. In many ways the film was shot like a play. A fewdifferent sets mainly indoors but little of interest outdoors. Verytightly framed shots of gravel driveways in stately old homes… fullstop.
Regarding the other courtesans with the exception of Cheri's wifesmother these were not a very stunning lot. Kathy Bates as a courtesan?Surely no man would pay serious money for her pleasures unless thesupply of other courtesans was very short. Clearly these 19th century,20th century gentlemen were either too free with their money or notfussy enough?
Perhaps Stephen Frears should have stayed on his side of the EnglishChannel. Mrs Henderson presents was quite enjoyable… it did have JudiDench, Bob Hoskins and the lovely Kelly Reilly.
Cheri should clearly have been left to the French, done with Frenchactors and actresses in French with English sub-titles. What we havehere sadly is about as French as McDonalds and must surely be a lostopportunity. Very disappointing.