Irish Film Institute -CHERI

CHERI

Director: STEPHEN FREARS

U.K.-FRANCE-GERMANY • 2009 COLOUR • ANAMORPHIC • DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO • 35MM • 100 MIN


LEADING LADY MICHELLE PFEIFFER, DIRECTOR STEPHEN FREARS AND SCREENWRITER CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON REUNITE TWO DECADES ON FROM DANGEROUS LIAISONS FOR ANOTHER TALE OF SURGING PASSIONS STIFLED BY EMOTIONAL RESERVE.

We’re in the belle epoque Paris of 1906, where Pfeiffer’s Lea de Lonval is among the famed courtesans who’ve amassed fabulous wealth from their distinguished clients, while their notoriety has made them outcasts from polite society. For this glamorous lady of independent means, companionship exists within her own kind, but, against all odds, she finds romance there too, falling for Rupert Friend’s Cheri, the 19-year-old son of a former rival (Kathy Bates, monstrously effective). Both creatures of a demimonde where superficial sexual allure masks an absence of personal involvement, they hardly recognise love when they’re experiencing it. Until, that is, his mother marries him off to the dowry-rich daughter of an even more acquisitive colleague.

Played out in downright gorgeous settings which resemble impressionist paintings brought to life, Frears’ film is so beautiful it’s easy to be ravished by it and leave it at that. Listen closely to the director’s own jaunty yet trenchant voiceover, and pay attention to the anguish the characters are battling to keep in check however, and you soon realise this is a chocolate box with some bracingly bitter centres. While Friend captures the boyishness which makes him a perfect partner for Pfeiffer’s veteran seductress, it’s the latter whose work is triumphantly centre stage. Her chiselled beauty now showing the faintest signs of age, she makes subtle yet deeply affecting her character’s dawning realisation that time has at last turned against her. — Trevor Johnston.

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