Adieu Cheri

 If you are a woman of a certain age, the only reason to go see Cheri is to gawk at Michelle Pfeiffer in her 1910 gowns and stunning hats.

If you are a man of a certain age, the only reason to go see the movie is to sit next to the woman who's brought you there. 

Based on a novel by French author Colette, Cheri assumes that a 19-year old boy can make an adequate pairing for a 40-something high-class prostitute on the verge of loosing her business to the damages of age and late-night champagne.  This is a very silly plot for which Colette can be forgiven.  She was married to a man who would lock her up in her room until she'd written the required number of pages each day.  Any of woman in her right mind would have written herlsef out of that hell-hole as fast as she could have.

Director Stephen Frears cannot be forgiven so easily.  For all I know, no one is locking him into his room, so what is the matter with him?

Why is he fooling us with empty promises of 'a wicked game of seduction'?   Pfeiffer might be dressed up  but she has nowhere to go.  Cheri is as insipid as bowl of cafeteria-issued mashed potatoes left on a stainless steel kitchen counter.   The sex scenes are straight out of a Harlequin novel, complete with chandeliers roaring fire, ten seconds of well-mannered moaning and many, many yards of white sheets.  Cheri, played by Rupert Friend, is so well-kept you know he flosses after every meal.  His young wife is still wearing the wool socks from her days at the convent and she refuses to gouge his eyeballs with a silver spoon no matter how mean he gets (which is not very much at all).  The only pickle in that dish is Kathy Bates in the role of Cheri's mother: a villain at last!  Why couldn't she be in every scene?

I held out to the very end hoping for a shocking nugget.  Fat chance.  Here is all that Cheri has to offer:

1. Loose women - even those who look amazing in hats the size of small coffee tables - cannot hope to hold on to the love of insipid young men twenty years their junior.

2. Women of a certain age don't look so hot upon waking up in the morning.

There.  I saved you $8 and 120 minutes of boredom.  Now go on and make better use of your time and money.  Go buy youself a tube of sunscreen and a lovely hat.  You'll thank me twenty years from now.

Comments

[colette]

We need exact descriptions of passion, so pay attention to whatever happens to you. Observe everything: love is greedy and forgetful. By all means fling yourself wildly into life (though sometimes you will be flung back by life) but don't let experience make you forgetful, and be surprised by everything that happens to you. Never underestimate the mysteries of love, the eminent dignity of not talking about love. Passionate attention is prayer, prayer is love. Ardor is delicioous, but keep your own room. One of my husbands said: is it impossible for you to write a book that isn't about love, adultery, semi-incestuous relations, separation, (of course, this was before our separation.) He never understood the natural law of love, the arc from the possible to the impossible...I have extolled the tragedy of the bedroom. Colette

[Marie-Pierre Stien]

Colette! Could it be you? So eloquent as always