Not as smooth as the silk dress Pfeiffer sports
The story of Chéri is quite simple. An older woman named Lea, a courtesan by nature, helps to bring a young boy into manhood (that would be Cheri). Regretfully, after six years of being together, the two naturally don’t want to separate from each other when Cheri’s mom sets him up with a marriage. Conflicted and hurt, they find a way to get back together only to discover that their desires might have died with their attempt at love.
The film is very simple and that might be the downfall of it. The love story in Chéri is incredibly shallow. The set up for Lea and Cheri starts with a voice over and ends with a voice over. They find each other, the get together and BAM! The movie fast-forwards six years without even a smidge of detail (other than a voice over). The film then wastes its time showing the two lovers suffering from forceful separation. The problem is that their love wasn’t completely established in the first place to get the audience in the mood to go along with their sufferings. It’s like if you were doing a film on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and decided that the build up of their love wasn’t important and you nixed it and went straight to the part where Romeo kills Tybalt; that’s how Chéri is done. I’m not sure who is to blame for this horrible imbalance in the film, but because we can’t relate to the couple you can’t really understand or feel for their separation. The entire movie revolves around the dependency of their broken love. If the audience can’t understand their love then there is little need to ask the audience to feel for the characters emptiness. That is a huge flaw in this film as it is a romance/drama and if you nix the romance then you have half a film.
As for the acting, it was all very good. Pfeiffer plays a perfect old courtesan, who is trying to kick the habit of guys, but can’t seem to let loose from it. She also plays a very conflicted courtesan who cannot fall in love, but accidentally does. I hope that was make-up on her in the film, otherwise she is not aging well at all. As for Rupert Friend, he was asked to play a spoiled brat and he does it quite splendidly. This is the other reason why focusing on their love was so key because Friend’s Cheri ends up coming off as a very bratty kid. Had we seen his change from boy to man it would have been much easier to swallow when he throws temper tantrums. Friend has a strong career in acting and hope he tries some bigger Hollywood roles (see Jame McAvoy for details, Rupert). Special kudos must be made for Kathy Bates, who played a wonderful ‘bitchy’ role as the mother of Cheri.
Moving on to the DVD features, here’s what you’re getting:
• The Making of Chéri
• Deleted Scenes
These are some good features. The ‘making of’ is darn good, as you get some more detailed insight into what the filmmakers were really trying to do with the story. It’s almost sad to think what could have been with this movie.