DVD: Chéri

Will Michelle Pfeiffer get another Oscar nomination with the same director from Dangerous Liaisons?
By Gabrielle Pantera

Michelle Pfeiffer, still a dangerous liaison

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 10/20/2009 – “She’s a courtesan, which I guess would be the equivalent to a modern-day call girl,” says Chéri star Michelle Pfeiffer. “Courtesans were independently wealthy and very smart, very shrewd business women. They were kept and they in turn kept their own lovers.”

“These women set fashions by the way they dressed and created dances,” says Cheri star Rupert Friend, “and set the trend in the way society behaved because they were a bit more daring.”

Paris’ most scandalous courtesan Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer) is thinking about retiring when her former rival Charlotte (Kathy Bates) comes asking a favor. Would Lea teach her son, Chéri (Rupert Friend) about women?

Chéri is an adaptation of two novels: Cheri, published in 1920 and The Last of Chéri, published in 1926. Colette was the pen name of the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, best known for her novel Gigi. The Cheri books were written by Colette almost twenty years before Gigi, which became a Broadway play and a Lerner & Loewe musical film. Cheri is rumored to have been based on Collete’s own scandalous affair with her 18-year-old stepson Bertrand De Jouvenel, who became a famous French philosopher and economist.

Dangerous Liaisons was Michelle Pfeiffer’s first Oscar nomination. Cheri and Dangerous Liaisons were both directed by Stephen Frears and written by screenwriter Christopher Hampton. Not as intense as Dangerous Liaisons, Cheri is more of a costume drama. The score is by Alexandre Desplat. Cinematography by Darius Khondji. Bonus material includes a making of featurette and deleted scenes.

Chéri was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. The Belle Époque costume drama is not for the guy looking for an action movie. This cougar story set in turn of the century Paris is for the girls and for fans of Michelle Pfeiffer.

Distributor: Miramax Films and Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Release Date: October 20, 2009

Feature run time: 108 minutes

Rated: R for some sexual content and brief drug use

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Languages: English

Subtitles: French and Spanish