Chéri

Plot synopsis:
Set in 1900s Belle Époque Paris, Chéri tells the story of the affair between an aging retired courtesan, Léa, and a flamboyant young man, Fred, nicknamed "Chéri" ("Dear" or "Darling").
Although Léa plans on keeping Chéri around for a short while, their affair turns into a six-year ordeal, in which Léa has begun paying for Chéri's expenses, and Chéri wears Léa's silk pajamas and pearls. The two believe their affair to be casual, and Léa learns Chéri's mother, Charlotte, has arranged for Chéri to marry the daughter of another courtesan, a barely eighteen-year-old named Edmée. Although Chéri does not wish to marry Edmée, it is made clear that he has no choice in the matter. Léa kicks him out of her home, but makes Chéri promise to always be gentle and kind with Edmée, and to try to give her a good life. After Chéri agrees, the two part ways. Léa does not attend the wedding, and Chéri and Edmée leave for their honeymoon. It is only after Chéri is on the train to Italy for his honeymoon that both he and Léa realise they are in love with each other. Chéri rapes Edmée and, while taking her virginity, realises that while sex with Edmée is strained and painful, sex with Léa was easy and fun. Léa visits Charlotte one last time before running off on vacation, making up a story in which she is involved in with another suitor, when in fact the only man Léa beds while on vacation is a young bodybuilder whom she has no feelings for and regards as a one-night stand.
Meanwhile, Edmée accuses Chéri of not caring about her, and says all he ever does is think of Léa. While out on the town with a friend, Chéri tries opium and cocaine, and on his way back he notices that Léa's apartment is no longer empty, and she has returned home. Comforted by the fact that Léa has returned, Chéri runs home to Edmée where he makes love to her properly and kindly, thinking that he can now live in peace with Edmée. He sends Charlotte the next day to inspect Léa's home, whereupon Léa says she is madly in love with her new "suitor", and learns (falsely) from Charlotte that Chéri and Edmée are crazily in love and happier than ever. That night, after hearing from Charlotte that Léa is in love with her suitor, Chéri breaks into her home and admits he loves her. The two spend one more night together and plan on running away. In the morning, however, Léa apologizes to Chéri for "ruining him" and making life too easy on him when they first begun their affair. Léa tells Chéri to go back to Edmée, for their age difference would always prevent a true relationship blossoming between them. Tentatively, Chéri leaves. Léa stares into her mirror at her aging face, and the narrator reveals she is angry for being born two decades before Chéri. The narrator also reveals that, after a while, Chéri realises that Léa was the only woman he could ever love, and he commits suicide.

Tags: flashback

Review:
Lea de Lonval (Michelle Pfeiffer) has been longtime 'friends' with Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates), even to the point of nurturing Madame's son Chéri (Rupert Friend) as he approaches manhood.
Perhaps it is the out of place use of a male narrator who gives the film an unnecessary feeling of being a documentary, or the somewhat overused musical score of Alexandre Desplat, or the emphasis on costumes that hardly add to the beauty of Pfeiffer as Lea that keep the production grounded.
"Cheri" is the nickname given by Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer) to the young, much younger Fred, whom she brings to discover the truth about lovemaking, and unintentionally but inevitably, about loving.
Indeed, her beauty, elegance and refinement are always there to remind her and us how difficult it is to come to terms with ageing, mainly when beauty has been the very essence of your life.The plot is almost absent, being the story more based on emotions, moods, sensations, rather than facts, and the movie in the end manages to capture the viewer, thanks to its capability to render the emotional side through glances and through effective and intense framing of both characters and situations: the last one is incisive, almost paralyzing.
Ironic and funny moments are not absent, mainly when Cathy Bates, playing the odd, high spirited mother, enters the scene, but the overall tone is a melancholic one, above all for the female public, we cannot but sympathize with Lea's inner strength, and at the same time feel moved by her deep suffering.
Then Fred, ("Cheri") the son of another courtesan (Kathy Bates) enters Lea's life, and she finds herself caring for the aimless but charming young man more than she should.Kathy Bates is wonderful as Madame Peloux, a former competitor of Lea's—a woman who, if you squint hard (and catch the "portrait" of a younger Peloux) you can imagine having a gamine charm years before.
One amazing scene: Among a bower of faded courtesans, one of them, a busty brassy red-head, cuddles and squeals like a teenager as she introduces her lover, a young man who's the son of one this woman's "official lovers." As she overwhelms the rather weedy young man with her caresses, the viewer can see Lea's discomfort—seeing the loud red-head and her boy lover seems like seeing a grotesque mockery of herself and Cheri.Cheri, the title character, is played by Rupert Friend (Prince Albert in "The Young Victoria," and Mr. Wickham in the 2005 version of "Pride and Prejudice").
My feelings about this film swung between two competing schools of thought as I watched it.One - do I feel any attachment and engagement in this story of Belle Epoque Paris where an extremely wealthy courtesan falls in love with the son of an extremely wealthy courtesan, a young man with apparently few redeeming features to his character ?
and Two - This is a very well made and acted film - Michelle Pfeiffer is excellent, drawing me into the feelings of her character as the film progressed and Rupert Friend makes much of a role that I'm sure other young actors would have found too complex In the end I settled closer to thought number two - this is a film with much to say about love and who we fall in love with.I was fortunate to attend a screening of this film at which both the writer - Christopher Hampton & director Stephen Frears were present and enjoyed listening to them talk about the film, it's development and their hopes for it.
While I thought the idea of the movie interesting--a May/December romance with Lea, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, being much older--it was distasteful that Michelle's character was like an aunt to the nineteen-year-old Cheri, played by Rupert Friend.
Michelle Pfeiffer played the retired "courtesan" lover with her usual reserved detachment, but her aged watery and bloodshot eyes throughout made me think she was perhaps too old for the role.
After you get over how beautiful the lighting makes 51 year old Michelle Pfeiffer playing her age and how old it makes 28 year old Rupert Friend playing 19, there's not much else to love about Cheri.
Or maybe you can love the sumptuous 19th century Paris estates, cars, and gowns of the idle rich, whose lives will morph into something less glamorous as the Belle Epoque slides into WWI.Colette's two novels about Chéri (Friend) the son of wealthy courtesan Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates), are not just about an indolent but beautiful rich slacker; they also follow the good fortune of Lea de Lonval (Pfeiffer), an unusually beautiful and profitable courtesan who has shrewdly prepared herself for financial comfort but forget the cardinal rule of prostitutes: Don't fall in love.After six years of lover's paradise, Chéri and Lea part as the takes an arranged bride.
Director Steven Frears, who has had a fair share of intriguing films and characters, just lets the camera make love to Pfeiffer and Friend without fleshing out the characters to let is know what is so lovable to be longing for so long.
Writer Christopher Hampton with Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement on his resume can't seem to muster a memorable line or develop his characters from flat clichés into round characters.I do concede that Kathy Bates delivering this line saved the film for the moment: "Don't you find that when the skin is a little less firm, it holds perfume so much better?" Said to Michelle Pfeiffer, these lines give Bates bite of the year honors and a brief respite from spare, meaningless dialogue..
and it's obvious that those beauties where more on the side of Marilyn Monroe than Michelle Pfeiffer, who looks like a window display mannequin with no curves in the right places and no minimal waistline (Hourglass figure painfully obtained thanks to an oppressing corset, but there it was).To give us total recall of that time our protagonist should have been somebody a bit fatter than Ms. Pfeiffer, since we readily forget all the changes the feminine figure has suffered just in the last 100 years; what was considered fashionable or desirable then was quite different from now, and a thin woman was totally undesirable.The film is nice, in a very superficial way, since its main flaw is irreparable, because speaking English in this superbly French story, we get a jarring note, and it's this: All the "decadent" morality, social behavior, points of view about richly kept elegant cocottes by the upper class French men is something totally unknown to puritan Victorian English society.
Just when you thought there wouldn't be an intelligent adult fare on the summer 2009 screen, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates light up the film with scenes that are so delicious and wicked in forming character and setting up the love story that follows.
The costumes, french locations and the rich tapestry of elegance which Stephen Frears paints on the screen in CHERI is breathtaking with a touch of pathos thrown into the mix as Ms. Pfeiffer transforms her character into a heroine that will remain timeless.
Lea is decades older and a former rival courtesan of Cheri's mother (Kathy Bates).
I couldn't imagine anyone else do a better Lea. Kathy Bates is just as good as Madame Peloux and Rupert Friend is competent in the title role.
Those rich people had also potent sexual needs for which a specialized class of women was called to cater for, a sort of elevated form of prostitutes, similar to the "heterai" of ancient Athens, enjoying riches and high-life but also excluded from respectable society, known also as "demi-mondaines", in the sense that they neither low enough to be part of the underworld neither good enough for normal society.One of them Lea de Lonval, played by Michelle Pfeiffer has aged for the standards of that age and her profession, when a former colleague and antagonist, requests her help to train her 19 year-old son, not even an adult but the criteria of early 20nth century, in the ways of the world and of love, in order to save him from his spendthrift and promiscuous life, guiding him through her expert hands.Unfortunately this temporary solution, that was going to be superseded by an arranged marriage for the boy, develops to a deep love which eventually brings tragedy to the couple.A study of perhaps outgrown social conventions of a bygone age and of a social environment which is rich but rife with antagonism and resentment, this movie based on two novels by the acclaimed and controversial French author Collete, is a fine evocation of a charming but flawed world, which may be found wanting in moral fibre by Anglosaxon Protestant moral criteria.Regardless of the personal opinion one may have about the people portrayed in this film, it is true that they are very ably presented both in their emotional profile as well as in their material surroundings.
Not that the "demi-mondaines" of the Third Republic were morally better than modern Hollywood celebrities, but the passing of time has let an aura to them, destroyed by the intrusion of the annoying voice of the narrator.The other point is that the language of the movie is English, while it describes an environment who spoke French, given that the international language of the rich was still French, at least of those residing in Paris, in early 2Onth century, that is before the USA had totally eclipsed Old Europe in the world stage.But those details are minor and you should watch this film, to savour the beautiful costumes, rich interiors, fine landscapes and all those elements that were unable to offer true happiness to the protagonists given that social convention barred their love from flourishing..
Even though there are more than two centuries of difference between the characters of Dangerous Liaisons and Chéri, it is impossible to deny the connection between both films, not only because they portrait scandalous romances from the aristocracy, but because they also count with Michelle Pfeiffer's powerful presence and Stephen Frears' precise direction.However, the comparisons become damaging when we compare the emotional impact and sardonic humor from Dangerous Liaisons with the hollow characters and dry romance from Chéri.I found Chéri to be a good film, because it kept me interested and entertained, but the screenplay feels a bit bland and frivolous.Due to novelist Colette's reputation (whose books Chéri and The Last of Chéri inspired this film), Frears' big talent as a director, and the presence of two brilliant actresses such as Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates, I expected to find something more passionate, incisive and ingenious.The biggest fail I found on this movie is that I found the character of Chéri to be underdeveloped and bland.I have the feeling that the screenplay diluted things from that character on its adaptation from the books.Nevertheless, I liked Chéri, specially because of the performances from Pfeiffer and Bates.The verbal encounters between them are perfectly interpreted, and the result is that they are very entertaining.So, Chéri is not totally satisfactory or highly memorable, but it still deserves a recommendation mainly because of its good performances and solid direction..
For a story about an intergenerational relationship between a moody teenager (Rupert Friend) and a retired lady of the evening (Michelle Pfeiffer), "Cheri" risks offending exactly no one.
Christopher Hampton's screenplay paints Lea and her eponymous partner Cheri as cardboard lovers, and Pfeiffer and Friend's sexual chemistry is almost non-existent.The rest of the performances are passable, though the inauthentic dialogue is a constant stumbling block, even for the usually-stellar Kathy Bates, who seems oddly defanged and miscast in her supporting role as Cheri's manipulative mother.
This film is about the love affair between a young man called Chéri, and an older but very attractive woman called Lea."Chéri" is a strong film, just like Stephen Frears' previous effort.
A typical cougar relationship, except there were no cougars in the late 19th Century France, during the Belle Epoque.This is a period of excess and Lea de Lonval (Pfeiffer) is living on her earnings, and she is teaching Cheri (Friend).
After six years of companionship, she has grown attached to Cheri, and is dismayed to learn his mother wants him married to the daughter (Felicity Jones) of another prostitute (Iben Hjejle).It is definitely a period piece with lavish costumes and sumptuous living, and emotions the rule of the day.What should have been a French film is decidedly English, but it was enjoyable nonetheless..
As the story begins, Lea goes to pay a visit to an old friend, Madame Peloux, a former courtesan, now living in splendor from the fortune she made out of her good fortune while playing the field.
Madame Peloux, wanting to have Cheri settled, arranges a marriage with the young daughter of Marie Laure, another woman in their circle who is eager to marry the girl.Lea is not prepared for what happens to her after Cheri goes away, for she had fallen in love at this stage of her life.
Cheri, on the other hand, is still obsessed with Lea, but during their last meeting she points out to the fact she has aged and he will be better off trying to make a go with his own wife, an unselfish deed on her part.Stephen Frears directed the Colette novel about that golden era in Paris.
One would have imagined this take on Colette's work could not have a great impact if not done by the French, but Mr. Frears and Mr. Hampton pulled a surprise with this enjoyable film.Michelle Pfeiffer makes a wonderful Lea. She has been one of the most beautiful presence in the movies ever since her beginning.
But the best reason of all is to see some really interesting performances from an array of predominantly female actors.Michelle Pfeiffer makes a very welcome and long overdue return to center stage, as Lea de Lonval, a Belle Epoch (ie turn of the 20th century) courtesan in Paris.
Lea is ready to retire from her profession, the business of sex, and takes up with the son of a fellow courtesan, the beautiful, languid Cheri (meaning Darling), not for money this time but for love.
Pfeiffer is radiant in the part, and watching her is a sheer pleasure.Cheri is played by Rupert Friend, who keeps popping up on my radar as one of the more interesting and talented of the young male actors around.
I thought at that time how much like Orlando Bloom he looks, but luckily he is a far better actor, and will, I think, ultimately have a longer shelf life.Also fabulous is Kathy Bates as Cheri's mother.
It is her plan to marry him off to Edmee, the young daughter of a fellow courtesan, taking him away from his true love Lea (his senior by many years) that sets the scene for what will become a tragedy.
Business takes precedence, marriage is a joining of fortunes and love means nothing, leaving everyone unhappy, Edmee, Cheri and Lea.Perhaps almost as interesting - or even more so – than this movie's story, is the story of Colette herself.
'Chéri' is a product of the great English team that created the brilliant Choderlos de Laclos adaptation 'Dangerous Liasons' (1988), Christopher Hampton the writer, as prolific as he is adept at turning French texts into English movies or plays, and Stephen Frears the director, who brought us such greatness as (to name a few) 'The Queen,' 'Dirty pretty Things,' 'The Grifters,' 'Prick Up Your Ears', and the novelistically rich bisexual story of Pakistanis and Cockneys in London, 'My Beautiful Laundrette'.
This new film moreover is graced by the presence of Michelle Pfeiffer in the central part of Colette's aging courtesan Léa de Lonval.
Pfeiffer had the pivotal role of Madame de Tourvel in 'Dangerous Liaisons.' Again this is a movie where French people speak English, but that worked in the audacious and sumptuous Frears/Hampton 'Dangerous Liaisons,' and it works again here.It's two decades later and Hampton, Frears, and Pfeiffer, though they show no sign of waning gifts, don't quite bring back the magic; but still 'Chéri,' adapted from two 1920's short novels by Colette (not as strong material as de Laclos' epistolary novel), is nicely paced and gorgeous to look at, and Michelle is a wondrously beautiful fifty-year-old and still a delicious actress.
All through the six years of the relationship Léa so adores Chéri, she hasn't the detachment 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: the story runs from the end of the Belle Époque to WWI.
During their idle moments or romantic longing, the filmmaker employs the flashback to show how both Cheri(Rupert Friend) and Lea(Michelle Pfeiffer) are never far from each other's minds.
An arranged marriage orchestrated by Cheri's mother(and Lea's one-time rival) Mme. Peloux(Kathy Bates), however, ends their six-year run, and on the boy's wedding day, the diegesis becomes a remembering one, as each lover conjures up the other at their most beautiful.
Michelle Pfeiffer who was in Dangerous Liasons, is the star of Cheri.They created one more fine film.She portrays an older courtesan in love with a much younger man CHERI.
Felicity Jones does this role and does it quite well.Cathy Bates is Cheri's domineering mother.This is a hard role to play well & Cathy does well.The period is prior to the start of WW 1; the sets, costumes are excellent.This is a first class film & should be seen by all who like first class movies.Ratings: ***1/2 (out of 4) 94 points (out of 100) IMDb 9 (out of 10).
Michelle Pfeiffer was about 50 when the filming was done and it appears she is playing a Courtesan about 50, Lea de Lonval.
Before I saw the movie I assumed the title referred to Pfeiffer's character, but in fact it was Rupert Friend as Chéri, a name Lea gave to him when he was growing up.
From Michelle Pfeiffer's god-awful accent to Kathy Bates' shrewish portrayal of an aging courtesan to Rupert Friend's listless portrayal of the title role.