Cheri DVD [2009]

Cheri DVD [2009] Description

Filled with luxurious gowns and lush grounds, Stephen Frearss Colette adaptation depicts an affair too perfect to last. Parisian courtesan Lea de Lonval (Michelle Pfeiffer) retains her good looks and has invested her earnings wisely, so her colleague, Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates), persuades Lea to celebrate the inception of her retirement by teaching the Madame's self-centered son, Cheri (Rupert Friend, recalling T.Rexs tousle-haired Marc Bolan), how to treat a lady. Lea, who has known Cheri his entire life, has genuine affection for the unformed lad, although, as she quips, I cant criticise his character, mainly because he doesnt seem to have one. To her surprise, their weekend in Normandy turns into a six-year-relationship. Then, Madame Peloux announces that she has found an appropriate 18-year-old bride for her now-reformed 25-year-old boy. Afraid to admit the depth of their feelings for each other, the duo grudgingly goes along with the plan since Belle epoque society demands that a proper gentleman marry a proper lady, and Lea realizes that matrimony to a man half her age isnt an option. But real love--even the co-dependent kind--cant be banished quite so easily as a bad habit. Frears and Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton, adapting Cheri and The Last of Cheri, previously collaborated with Pfeiffer on Dangerous Liaisons, but their reunion is a comparatively somber affair that comes recommended more for fans of the actress, who gives the role her all, than for fans of the filmmaker, whose direction feels perfunctory, particularly during the blink-and-youll-miss-it epilogue. --Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon.