Cheri - film review
Sumptuous costumes and locations, a galaxy of Hollywood stars and English stalwarts (well almost)... if only they'd spent a bit more effort on the writing and direction.
A patchy adaptation from the works of Collette, it's unclear whether this film is intended as a comedy or something more serious. In the event, it falls into some bland and pointless zone between the two. The casting of Kathy Bates as Mme Peloux, a fin de siecle French courtesan stretches credibility, particularly when delivering her lines in the style of a graduate of the Brian Blessed school of acting.
Freddy Peloux (Mme Peloux's son) understandably falls into a long term love affair with Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer), a woman twice his age, and a contemporary and former rival of Mme Peloux. However his mother has alternative plans for Freddy, and arranges marriage to Emdee, the daughter of another rich courtesan. Neither Freddy nor Lea copes well with their enforced separation, and there's a will-they, won't-they possibility of reconciliation, as the various characters swan around from Paris to the countryside and the Mediterranean coast. But by the time the ending is in sight, who cares?
In fact, the final words "Freddy got out and dusted down his old service revolver and put a bullet through his brain" (regrettably told only in voice-over, by the otherwise irritating narrator - the need for whom suggests deficiencies in the screenplay) do offer some redemption, but can't compensate for the preceding 99 minutes.
I suggest you give it a miss.