Friday, June 26, 2009

Movie review: Chéri

It'll make a momma's boy out of you.

By John P. Meyer

Stephen Frears' Chéri is a charmingly odd bird of unusual backstory plumage.

Twenty-one years ago, Frears teamed with writer Christopher Hampton to make a devilishly-delightful period costume drama called Dangerous Liaisons. That movie starred Michelle Pfeiffer as Madame de Tourvel, a virtuous married woman who served as the focus for an aristocratic game of amoral seduction.

In the present film, Frears and Hampton are together again -- and they've brought Michelle Pfeiffer back on board for another steamy period drama, basing their story this time on a pair of tales by free-spirited novelist Colette.

Pfeiffer, now 51, still oozes sex appeal (albeit of a decidedly mature variety) in her role as Lea de Lonval, an aging Parisian courtesan of the Belle Époque. Lea has for many years served as something of a godmother to the son of her best friend, fellow fleshly-services entrepreneur Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates, who works fine in the role as long as you can refrain from imagining her naked in a hot tub. Sorry about that ...)

"It seems like only weeks ago I was changing your diaper."

Thus, when the young man in question (Rupert Friend, as Chéri) initiates an exuberant makeout session with Lea on the eve of her departure for a season in the country, the encounter carries a frisson of the forbidden that adds considerably to its voyeuristic intensity. (Speaking purely as a professional observer.)

Friend is completely unrecognizable as the same actor who portrayed a sadistic Nazi in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Here he appears quite the fop, seeming to have modeled his performance on the sort of dandy epitomized by Oscar Wilde -- at least, that version of Oscar Wilde promulgated by popular entertainments. Though to be clear, Chéri is innately heterosexual.

The heated affair between Chéri and Lea becomes something far more enduring than the two had ever intended or imagined; for several years they remain lovers. In Lea, Chéri has found a woman who offers him more than a roll in the bedchamber (of which he has had plenty by this juncture); they share a deep and genuine affection for each other, leading Lea to forget for a time that her bloom will fade long before his interest in flowers.

"Ooh la la!"

Enter the youthful Edmee (Felicity Jones), daughter of yet another carnal enterpriser, Marie Laure (Iben Hjejle). Women of unquestionably compromised repute seem to have been legion during the Belle Époque (which may have been part of what made it so dang Belle, now that we think of it). Madame Peloux -- who has up 'til now been more than accepting of the arrangement between her friend and her son -- thinks it's time for Chéri to take a bride of his own, and she considers Edmee a capital choice.

Lea sees the writing on the wall (and the crows feet in the mirror) and ejects the protesting Chéri from her vestibule -- not because she doesn't love him, but because she wants what's best for him. Accepting the inevitable, Chéri goes off on an extended seaside honeymoon with his new bride.

"I've always found gaiety to be so unutterably boring."

For her part, Edmee is thoroughly smitten. She basks in whatever attention Chéri deigns to bestow upon her, and is initially accepting of his longing for his former love. But enough eventually becomes enough, and when Chéri deserts her for several days of drunken, opium-fueled, misery-laced wallowing, she begins to wonder whether he will ever get over his old lover. (I mean, his PREVIOUS lover. Who's certainly a good deal OLDER, but ... ah, never mind.)

There's a beautiful sequence during which Lea and Chéri -- in their separate worlds, a thousand miles apart -- each fantasize about being with the other. In her lonely rooms, Lea's longing is of such intensity that she must cry out.

Realizing that she can't go on in such unhealthful fashion, Lea resolves to return to her professional endeavors and decamps to the coast for some old-fashioned rich young man hunting. While her heart really isn't in it, the other parts of her prove up to the challenge.

And thus it is Chéri's turn to pine for the fjords, as it were, when he returns to Paris and discovers Lea's villa unoccupied. (Not to mention her vestibule.)

Is that a fjord in the background? No?

Lea and Chéri's final encounter marks the climax of the film, and it's a predictably touching and bittersweet one. For a while, even we filmgoers have been persuaded to forget that their relationship was doomed to end unhappily. Just as all relationships are. Doomed, I mean. To end. Unhappily. (Cue the violins.)

Some will find Chéri to be annoyingly talky, with rather too much off-camera narrative employed -- particularly in the film's opening and closing segments. And some will be completely unable to refrain from imagining Kathy Bates naked in a hot tub (DO NOT CLICK HERE, for God's sake!). But for its steamy, romantic subject matter; engaging (and thoroughly engaged) lead players; grand, swelling classical score (courtesy Alexandre Desplat); and beautiful cinematography (Darius Khondji), we'd prefer this to rock 'em sock 'em robots any day.

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