“I can’t really criticize his character, mainly, simply because he doesn’t seem to have one,”
A Movie Recommendation ~ Women’s History Month ~ Chéri
In honor of Women’s History Month — I’m cool recommending a movie from 2009 because it’s rather superb.
I’d heard about the French author Colette or Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette; her proper full name. Probably because I actually bought the book “Chéri/The Last of Chéri” way back whenever — can’t even remember. As I have no recollection of the content, it must belong to the category of books accumulated over the years as “cool cover gotta have it — will read immediately” obviously ending in the ever-growing pile. The upside: books never grow old. Their shelf-life is infinite.
It annoyed me I needed a nudge from Hollywood to drag my attention back to all these in stacks of languishing gems. How unoriginal is that? Note to myself: amend.
So, yes, Hollywood and “Cheri”.
I’m probably making a fool of myself… but then again, why not? Life is short! ~ Léa de Lonval in ‘Chéri’
Michelle Pfeiffer portrays the aging demi-monde in the film. An interview first piqued my interest. Although I suspect, since in the segment I saw, they were just talking about Al Pacino and not really about the movie she was promoting, I forgot about “Chéri” again.
Scrolling through some movie trailers, I was reminded — oh yeah, Pfeiffer. Oh, and Frears. Oh, and Hampton. Oh, and Bates. Who can resist as the excitement level rose exponentially? Watching the trailer confirmed my “must-see” instinct, and I was not disappointed.
The story in a nutshell: it’s about an affair between an older, beautiful woman and a young, petulant, capricious dandy.
Anonymous male friend: You enjoy being spiteful? Chéri: I always find it cheers me up
Oh, and in case you need more arguments for seeing this film:
#1 director Stephen Frears also is responsible for Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Grifters, High Fidelity and so many more….. his body of work speaks for itself.
#2 Christopher Hampton adapted many of the screenplays Frears directed and has a credit list that will make any writer drool with envy while simultaneously hailing his writing for the divine consistency of excellence, wit, and brilliance it has.
#3 Ms. Pfeiffer is her luminous and lovely and funny self. Of course, her beauty attracts, but her sustenance as an actress elevates her above so many of her vacuous, stretched, and surgically changed contemporaries. I will watch anything she is in.
#4 Kathy Bates. As always, sure, calm, and sharp as a knife, in her ability to capture one in her magically down-to-earth style world of wit. I’d like an aunt like that. You know, the type that just hugs you to her ample chest and tells you funny stories and makes you laugh, assuring you, with wise words, everything is going to be ok.
#5 The author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Her life story is one of those blasts of bravery every woman should at least have an inkling about. She was a woman of her era — born 1873, which meant rigid, unforgiving of faux pas, unfair, conservative, and men made the rules as they had for centuries. Colette took some of those rules and made them her own. She used those rules as advantages for herself; turned the tables, so-to-speak. By the end of the 1920s, she was regularly celebrated as France’s greatest living female writer. She tirelessly championed women’s sexual liberation through her art. At the age of 75, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
I cannot interest myself in anything that is not life ~ Colette
Check your streaming services, watch it, love it, and I also suggest reading the book. Because it’s also rather wonderful.
Swinging in a hammock between palm tree dreams, or sitting on a park bench. Or at home. If Hampton and Frears felt it worth interpreting, then it’s definitely worth reading. And their craft makes each medium a work of stand-alone creativity, meaning what they adapt into screenplays, will not disappoint when compared to the book.
Enjoy in whichever form, I say.