Kirpianuscus charming for actors more than for story. trip around a world like an ice cream. love and interests and humor and relations and secrets and seduction as refined art. short, a nice adaptation, provocative for the flavor of an universe who seems be part of Dangerous Liaisons, wise lesson about science to explore detail and an impressive cast doing its the best. and, sure, Michelle Pffeifer. in a role who seems be her perfect tool for translate emotions and shadows of an age and impossibility of the right option.

FrameXFrame One of the delights of this film is the lushness and perfection of the sets and costumes of the Belle Époque (c. 1890-1914). The sets and costumes are so gorgeous they threaten to overwhelm the actors. Threaten, but don't succeed. Michelle Pfeiffer is sensual and beautiful as the aging courtesan Lea—a woman approaching a "certain age," as the narrator (Stephen Frears) informs us. Lea has known the love and admiration of the wealthiest men in Europe, many of them titled. She has been wise to keep her heart out of her affairs. 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. Bates' acting moves effortlessly from laughing delightedly at smutty gossip to quickly assuming the pouting self-righteous expression of a disapproving mama as she discusses her son. From former courtesan to bourgeois matron in the blink of an eye. Bates carries this quick switch act off several times in the movie, and it's a pleasure to watch her skill at these rapid changes. The sets and costumes of Mme. Peloux, heavy 2nd Empire furnishings, stiff wired dressed with bustles, are beautifully contrasted with Lea's lighter look—slender, graceful, light. The clothes each character wears, and the styles of their respective homes, gives some subtext to the story. Mme. Peloux, a bit older than Lea, had her taste formed in an era of overdone stuffy pretentiousness, while Lea, a bit younger, has embraced the airy beauty of Art Nouveau. The stultifying life of aging and former courtesans is well-depicted—unwelcome in respectable society they have to fall back on each other's company. Former competitors, they still can't help sniping at one another. Lea, as one of the youngest of the group, moves like a sylph among the faded charms of her cohort. 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"). He's a young man who has only two responsibilities: marry, and manage the large amount of money his mother settles on him at his marriage. He's a young man without purpose, but finds love with Lea. What starts as a light-hearted affair turns into a relationship both Cheri and Lea need more than they realized. Lea and Cheri's affair ends—as does the wonderful era depicted in this gorgeous movie. The war ends Lea and Cheri's world. The 20th century starts with bleakness and hardness after the golden afternoon of La Belle Époque. We are indebted to Collette and Stephen Frears for showing us the loveliness, and even the artful decadence, of that time, and we are indebted to the talented cast for giving life to the "demi-monde" ("half-world") of that era.

sandover It is difficult to do justice or condemn this film. From the start it hits a jarring note: cards flying like swift balloons (while the air blows out of them?) of plump fin-de-siecle belles and then the bony Michelle? This is something else than tongue-in-cheek.The design, the palette, the clothes are sumptuous, sometimes stunning. Also, particularly the stage set, is so self-knowingly, amusingly, coldly theatrical. I mention this because in such demi-monde, quasi-moral tales the sets set the tone, either of the narrative, of the allegorizing moral, of the wry, detached humor, or of the quasi-queasy lifelessness.Oh! It is the Belle Epoque - a funnily voiced narrator always intrudes, as if to mock the moral tone of such a proceeding and also to pinpoint the self-mockery of what he narrates - and a courtesan high and slowly retired falls for a so much younger lover, the son of a "colleague", while entertaining a detached air and the illusion that experience can be bemused and amused by passion, having achieved some sort of self mastery.It all proves so misinformed; the couple, after six years on the frothy float of erotic bliss, runs out of the proverbial champagne: we are introduced to the moment of crisis with just enough foregrounding in the beginnings of their liaison, and introduced in a bizarrely appropriate way: Cheri trying on a pearl necklace debates whether he should have it, since it looks so much better on him. It is deliciously epicene the way it is presented, with just the right amount of clueless poutiness by Cheri and strikes an ominous note that in a way is matched only in the end, after a painstaking cinematic, wandering arch. They seem to know they run out of champagne, but they still want to dissolve pearls in it, for the taste and the thrill. The problem with this film is the directorial approach: I am not sure I have grasped what Mr. Frears tries to accomplish after decades of film-making, that much being sure: the film's looks are too sumptuous for them to match the guignol sensibility of Colette's subtle humor. But let's say, leave it as it is, let it be more on the English side (or to the American one with Kathy Bates being as continental as a burger) than on the French one. Mr. Frears is usually portraying women, but his method here fails: an empty face in the end (reminnicent of Glenn Close's at the end of the "Liaisons"), is what it makes it awkward: I do not think Colette invested in any sense of tragic morality. Instead her tone is more mischievous, as suits the French. That does not mean she is not sympathetic to her characters, but rather that it is out of this sensibility's context if one saves or loses face. I would go as far as claim that Colette would not subscribe to the notion that women have a face; it is difficult with such a claim to achieve mischievous entertainment.It is also jarringly funny the fact that Colette and Rupert Friend, courtesy of make-up and wig, look alarmingly alike. Was this a way-too-inside note for Colette's lesbianism? Anyway, as it is, the film's rich cinematography captures the pearly perfection of Cheri's skin-tone, courtesy of Mr. Friend's English complexion.Perhaps one should take the ending titles as a key to how one should watch this film: panels slide one on top of the other; panels of letters evoking amorous ones, panels of tapestry evoking interiors where painful and delicious meetings take place, and screens behind which people get naked and clothed.

whathappensincinema There is something about Michelle Pfeiffer. She just has an indelible star quality that makes her seem born to be an actress. Even more specifically, she seems to have been born to play a character like Lea de Lonval…not because Lea is a glorified prostitute, but because she is a vivacious, vibrant woman who commands the attention of everyone she meets. Likewise, Pfeiffer commands our attention in "Chéri", a delightfully dishy romantic drama that is as entertaining as freshly-shared gossip and as tragic as a tearjerker. Pfeiffer exudes female sexuality as Lea, a courtesan who has amassed great wealth and a small set of friends over her illustrious career. One of her friends is a fellow courtesan, Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates), who is loud, comical, and concerned about the affairs of her handsome son, Chéri (Rupert Friend), who is not innocent, but rather untrained. And thus begins Lea's assigned mission: refine Chéri and return him as a suitable gentleman.Their affair begins as expected, but continues quite unexpectedly, with them falling in love and devoting years to each other. Lea is twenty-four years older than him and, though a sexual relationship is allowed and even encouraged by his mother, anything beyond that is strictly forbidden by society. Slightly reminiscent of William Shakespeare's pair of star-crossed lovers, Lea and Chéri know that they can never be together, but their love is impossible to restrain. That is until Madame Peloux arranges a marriage between Chéri and a pleasant enough young woman, thus sealing the end of any chance, however slim, they ever had of creating a life together. Lea realizes the searing loss that this arrangement brings immediately, but it takes Chéri, often too blinded by his own childish self-serving nature, much longer to realize…and, in a world populated by such people as these, even a little too long can often be just long enough.Please read my full review on my blog: www.whathappensincinema.blogspot.com