Based on the novel, Chéri with a little bit of the sequel La Fin de Chéri, by Collette, Chéri (2009) tells of the charmingly tragic (or is it tragically charming?) love affair between retired courtesan Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the much younger son of her colleague, Fred, whom everyone calls Chéri (Rupert Friend). He reenters her life at the age of 19, a dissolute and beautiful young man who has too much money and nothing better to do with his life than whore it up in the high-end brothels of Belle Époque Paris. Chéri’s mother, the vastly wealthy former courtesan, Madame Charlotte (Kathy Bates), essentially throws him into the arms of Léa in what would appear to be an attempt to protect him from succumbing to the seedier amusements that he’s been flirting with. It’s a strange strategy by modern standards, but I guess it made sense at the time, considering the society Léa and Charlotte exist in.
Like all Stephen Frears’ films, this one is gorgeous from top to bottom. Notable locations include the Hôtel Mezzara, designed by Hector Guimard that stands in as Léa’s elegant Art Nouveau home, the restaurant Maxim’s, and the Hôtel Biarritz. Consolata Boyle, who often works with Frears, designed the costumes.
Léa is old enough to be Chéri’s mother, and he definitely has something of an Oedipal fixation with Léa, whom he nicknamed Nounoune as a child and continues to call her that throughout the film. It definitely underscores the fact that Chéri is emotionally stunted and Léa is an enabler in continuing to act as his protector. He dresses in her silk pajamas, prances around in her jewelry, pouts and flounces about like the worst of spoiled children, and yet, he’s an adult man and just when the dynamic between the two threatens to go full-on Oedipal, he suddenly subverts it by turning into the dominant partner. Talk about a study in Freudian psychology.
For the most part Léa seems pretty self-aware of the situation that she’s actively enabling, but things take a turn for the serious when she finds out about Chéri’s engagement to the daughter of another courtesan, a somewhat plain and vapid girl named Edmée. Léa suddenly realizes 1) that she’s in love with Chéri; 2) there’s no logical way she can be with him; and 3) she’s old and Chéri’s life is really just getting started when hers is winding down. Were they closer in age, it might have worked, but she’s in her 50s, and he needs to start a family soon.
I think the thing about the film that really resonated with me was the whole question of the desirability of an aging woman. I’m on the brink of 40 and I find myself wondering that a lot lately, so this felt pretty timely for me. I don’t think the film resolves this in any way, but it doesn’t really shy away from it–even though Michelle Pfeiffer is undeniably better preserved than most women in their 50s (a fact that was harshly pointed out over and over in the press when the film came out), she still has that chameleon-like ability to look young when the light is soft and look “of a certain age” when the light is less kind. I couldn’t help imagining what an actress like Helen Mirren would have done with the role, though. Of course, I tend to wonder that about a lot of roles in films. I suppose she was probably too old to play Léa, which is pretty ironic…
As for Rupert Friend, an actor that I’ve never been that into, holy moly, YES PLEASE. Something about that mop of dark hair and those glittering blue eyes, and all the fantastically tailored suits… It was a pleasure watching him. And even then, just when you thought that he was such a little shit, why would anyone of Léa’s caliber give him ten minutes of her time, let alone ten years of her life, he manages to redeem himself. Even when he’s in the process of realizing that Léa is actually too old to build a life with, it’s not with cruelty that he comes to this conclusion. It’s a painful moment of realization that they both struggle to accept before the inevitable happens.
And one final mention — the fabulous Kathy Bates. She chews the scenery with absolute glee the whole way and, and that sequined gown she wears when she visits Léa at her home is TO. DIE. FOR.
This is one of my favourite Belle Epoque/Art Nouveau films. Clothes, as you mentioned are to die for. It’s romantic and real simultaneously. You glimpse a world of the most successful courtesans of Paris during the era of the fictional Gigi, the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, and Proust’s muse and fashion-setter Elizabeth Countess Greffuhle: their lives, children, wealth and the world is beautiful.
Gosh, and it looks like there were some FANTASTIC authentic-looking portraits in the film too. I went Googling to find Kathy’s sequin gown and found these – they do look very nicely done!
http://www.copie-tableau.com/english-portrait.htm
The dresses were amazing! Lea’s bed was also beautifully Art Nouveau. Kathy Bates is always fun to watch and especially so when she’s in historical costume.
Except for the ending (I really, really, REALLY hate unhappy endings in movies, and I don’t care if it’s irrational), this is one of my favorite Belle Epoque movies of the last couple of decades. As another comment noted, it focuses on some of the most intriguing people of the Paris of that era – the great courtesans, who were at the very top of a certain stratum of society (stipulating that they’d never have been able to get in through the doors of the stuffy people called “the Four Hundred” in Gilded Age New York) – and I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading about the high-level Parisian demimonde lately.
The architecture and costumes in the movie are gorgeous beyond belief and Michelle Pfeiffer embodies elegance. She and Kathy Bates bring their frenemy retired courtesans to life to such detail that one can feel the frustration of Lea for not having anyone else to hang out than the disguised manipulator Charlotte. That’s all I actually liked about the movie. The persisting trope of old, fat and fallen women being wooed by handsome, rich, athletic men, being treated as if they are the superstars while younger, beautiful, unsoiled women were ridiculed might get standing ovations from today’s feminazis. The other idea of courtesans being business savvy and exercising conscious restrain with their earnings is far from the truth as only a few grand Horizontales actually enjoyed comfort in their old age due to lack of economic understanding, addictions like gambling and drugs and lavish spending and partying. But everyone has their opinion.
Both sets and costumes are magnificent; I still think about that rose-shaded allée where, as I recall, Léa and Charlotte go walking. But I was so dismayed by Michelle Pfeiffer’s “relatable” casting (presumably her name helped induce financial backing). While I usually like Pfeiffer very much, a gorgeous, desirable courtesan of the period didn’t resemble a middle-aged California surfer. Colette would have been horrified to see her lush Léa portrayed this way.