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Rated 3.04 stars
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ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Pfeiffer Perfect as Ageless Beauty
by Diana Saenger

It’s been some time since a truly seductive romance has appeared on the big screen, so the arrival of Chéri, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend, has much to live up to. Director Stephen Frears re-teamed with screenwriter Christopher Hampton, his partner on Dangerous Liaisons, for this adaptation of two novels by Colette de l'Académie Goncourt. While the story seems somewhat dry and occasionally plods along, Pfeiffer and Friend make up for those flaws by creating a passionate sexual chemistry on screen.

Pfeiffer plays Léa de Lonval, a Parisian courtesan in the early 20th century. A short opening vignette reveals that courtesans were women who used their potent combination of sex and politics to influence powerful men and advance their own places in society. Today they would be referred to as high-priced call girls.

Léa, who has done very well for herself with this lifestyle, begins thinking of retiring when her friend and noted gossip, Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates), presents her with a challenge. Charlotte is annoyed because her son, lovingly nicknamed Chéri, has become irritable and restless, and may be in need of an exciting older woman’s charms.

What begins as a one-on-one flirtatious conversation in the garden between Léa and Chéri turns into a ravenous six-year affair with Léa not only supporting her new lover but equating his skills to a Masters in Lovemaking. They shut the world out around them and satisfy their own needs -- he to mature, she to stay young.

Just when life seems perfect, Léa learns that Charlotte now wants more for her son -- marriage and children. She pairs him off with Edmee (Felicity Jones), a youthful and innocent girl from a prominent family.

Surprised to discover she had fallen in love with Chéri, Léa feels devastated when he gets married. She boards up her house and heads for the seashore in hopes of finding a new lover. Ultimately, she and Chéri discover their affair was unrivaled, and they long to be together again. A craving that surely would come with great turmoil, but has that ever stood in the way of an obsessive attraction?

The fact that the plots of Colette’s books, Chéri, published in 1920 and The Last of Chéri in 1926, can still hold their charm in today’s world speaks volumes about the obsessive power of sex, beauty and youth. Pfeiffer’s (Stardust) ability to still bring grown men to their knees with adoration -- and make 20-year-olds envious of her beauty -- proves she’s the perfect choice for this role.

Because Frears had previously worked with Pfeiffer on Dangerous Liaisons (1988), he knew she would “fill the shoes of an actress who could deftly hit notes of humor, intelligence and pathos all in one fell swoop.” According to Frears, Pfeiffer “was upsetting in Dangerous Liaisons and she’s upsetting in a different way as Léa. She’s unnerving, as though being that beautiful contains its own tragic quality, and that is what I wanted…a beautiful woman facing the reality of aging and Michelle is one of the most beautiful women in the world.”

While the story seems to flounder when Léa and Chéri are apart, that’s the time which provides insight into Léa’s realization about her own life.

“It’s only when this young beautiful boy Chéri comes into her life that she completely loses her perspective and falls prey to her heart for the first time in her life,” Pfeiffer declared. “Love has never happened for her and she’s always accepted that, yet now she’s grappling with the aging process and she feels that this is her one last chance.”

At first, Friend comes off a tad sheepish as Chéri, but eventually he fills the shoes of this character well. He certainly broadens the range of his talents, having more recently played Prince Albert in the historical romance of The Young Victoria and the intriguing Lieutenant Kotler in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Bates (Revolutionary Road) fits the role of the scheming Charlotte as if it were written for her. Jones continues the innocence of the era she exhibited in Brideshead Revisited, but as Edmee in Chéri, she also demonstrates a calculated maturity in patience as she waits for her new husband to recognize her worth. 

Chéri is enhanced by Consolata Boyle’s gorgeous costumes and beautiful cinematography by Darius Khondji (Wimbledon), but it’s the tension and vulnerability of the love affair that fuels the film.

(Released by Miramax and rated “R” for some sexual content and brief drug use.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com .


                                                                                                                                                                               
 
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