Cheri (DVD)

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From Stephen Frears ("The Queen") comes this period comedy-drama based on a 1920 novel by that naughty French novelist, Colette. And Frears does a fine job of capturing the look of turn-of-the-century France, as well as the essence of Colette's story.

It helps, I'm sure, to have people like Rupert Friend and Michelle Pfeiffer playing opposite each other in the male and female leads, since each has a good track record of pulling of period roles--Friend with films like "Pride & Prejudice" and "The Young Victoria," and Pfeiffer with "Dangerous Liaisons." Then there's the accomplished Kathy Bates, whose performance of a retired courtesan and doting mother calls to mind her role as Queen Victoria in the remake of "Around the World in 80 Days," but with a tad more lustiness! The point is, the actors fit comfortably into the period, and that's the first challenge for a director.

The second is pacing, because period films need to negotiate a sometimes uneasy middle ground between lifestyles separated by a hundred years or so. In this Frears is also successful, giving us a story that feels leisurely told but with enough strong visual interest and compactly designed scenes so that it doesn't feel too slow for contemporary audiences, many of whom probably have to turn off their Blackberries to keep from toying with them during ANY movie.

"Chéri" is a tale of two courtesans--rivals, we're told--who plied their trade at a time when their clientele included all the top heads of state and the fortunes they amassed allowed them to live lives of upper-class luxury. There's the still-ravishing Lea (Pfeiffer), who's contemplating retirement because she feels time catching up to her, and the already retired Madame Peloux, whose looks have already taken the train south. They are cordial to each other in person as they socialize with others, but like true rivals they have as much disdain for the other as they do respect. Lea, for example, refers to Madame Peloux as "The harpie" tongue-in-cheek, and such sharp-tongued wit shapes the humor in this odd love story.

Chéri, it turns out, is the spoiled-rotten and effeminate son of Madame Peloux, and the young man is turning out to be as uncontrollable as his mother is inconsolable. Mom's solution? To ask her friend-slash-rival if she wouldn't take on Chéri as a project, as a favor to her. Teach him the ways of love, for perhaps it's not knowing what to do that makes him behave so badly in social settings. Make him a man . . . or at least a human being.

And so we watch a strange relationship develop between Lea and Chéri, a kind of co-dependency that constantly feeds into itself. As the box copy rather poetically describes, this is what happens when "a boy who refuses to grow up collides with a woman who realizes she cannot stay young forever." In the meantime, Madame Peloux remains on the outside, wondering if this monster she created will come back to haunt her. Weeks pass. Months pass. Years pass. And finally Mom decides that something needs to be done to break up this pair, because . . . well, figuring out the because is part of the fun of this film, and so I won't go there. But the focus really isn't so much on plot--Mom's meddling or otherwise--as it is character, and Frears all but invites us to try to understand the attraction between these two free spirits. Setting is also so powerful and beautifully rendered that it almost becomes a fourth major character. It's almost become a cliché to say so, but frame after frame looks and feels like an Impressionist painting, with rich, warm colors bathing over the landscapes. "Chéri" is a stylish film in every sense of the word, with art and set designs and costuming that feeds into that pre-World War I optimism and opulence. And the screenplay from Christopher Hampton ("The Quiet American," "Atonement") features the kind of restrained, clever dialogue that characterized Colette's novels.