Review: Cheri

Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Friend, Kathy Bates. Screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Colette. Directed by Stephen Frears. Miramax. Rated R (sexual content and drug use). 100 minutes.

* * *

A luminous Michelle Pfeiffer carries Cheri, the tale of a Belle Epoque courtesan who, in the twilight of her career, unexpectedly falls in mad love with a dashing younger man, played by Rupert Friend. Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Christopher Hampton, the duo who led Pfeiffer to an Oscar nomination in the searing Dangerous Liaisons two decades ago, Cheri is a gorgeous and entertaining film, fun to watch but ultimately a bit light.

Based on two novels by Colette, Hampton’s screenplay opens in an opulent, extravagant 1920s France, where courtesans were revered in society, dabbling in equally in art, commerce and the ways of seduction and love. Fiftiesh Lea de Lonval (Pfeiffer), still impossibly beautiful and wise at schooling powerful men in the ways of love, is on the verge of retirement.

A visit with tart-tongued, fellow working girl Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates) reveals her nineteen-year-old son, nicknamed Cheri (Friend), a strapping and virile version of the tot Lea herself once helped to raise.

The pair instantly connect, and their chemistry leads to an erotic education that surprises Lea herself, who falls in love with the young man, possibly for the first time. While gracious that Lea has lent her services to her own son’s development, Madame Peloux arranges a marriage with a younger lass, hoping for grandchildren. But the separation devastates both Lea and Cheri, whose lives take very different paths that ultimately lead back to each other.

Cheri is utterly top-notch in every respect but one: its screenplay. The film doesn’t go quite deeply enough, and it is difficult to determine why. Frears and Hampton certainly demonstrate a firm grasp of both the social realities of the mileu and the complexities of Lea’s dilemma, as she realizes love has come too late, yet plunges anyway.

In the immensely satisfying final act, Cheri really comes to life as Pfeiffer, the last grand, elegant beauty of American cinema, delivers a coup de grace monologue, shot in close-up, with melancholic determination, longing for love as if the world were about to end. The dialogue, performance, score and cinematography all coalesce into a moment of great beauty, suggesting how much deeper the rest of the film might have been.

Recommended.

- Lee Shoquist