No need for elaborate sets: a walk through a rose garden or a Mucha reproduction on the wall, will suffice, especially when our primary attention is riveted by the sensuous interplay of the two leads.

| Mar 19, 2018

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Director Stephen Frears made a nice job of The Queen but this is 'King awful.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 29, 2010

The film is a comedy of manners with a powerful undercurrent of tragedy. Cheri is funny, sad and charming, and the ending may shock you.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 28, 2009

Sadly the few good elements of Cheri only serve to highlight the films considerable inadequacies, and the only bedroom-based action it will inspire is a comforting nap, possibly before the end of the film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 27, 2009

Stretching out like a cat on the wide screen, Michelle Pfeiffer shows off her durable glamour in the star role of Lea de Lonval, a high-class courtesan in pre-World War I France.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 24, 2009

It's the kind of refined, delicate acting Pfeiffer does so well, and it's a further reminder of how much we've missed her since she's been away.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 1, 2009

These two lovebirds are playfully mismatched, and that's just why they fall for each other.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 30, 2009

Cheri is a serviceable period piece, but not much more.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2009

It's hard to believe that the smart Lea would remain interested for six hours, much less six years, with the vapid Chéri.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 26, 2009

Like the exquisite costumes, the scenery is as gorgeous as most of the cast, providing the perfect backdrop for some unabashed escapism.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 26, 2009

A smart and lushly romantic film adaptation of a Colette story of a doomed love.

Full Review | Jun 26, 2009

The film itself, though, is all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Full Review | Jun 26, 2009

There just isn't enough beneath the surface in Cheri to justify all the talent on hand.

| Original Score: C | Jun 26, 2009

With nothing truly at risk of being lost, we're left to ask, why are we here?

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 26, 2009

Chéri is a perfect example of a movie that gets many of the details right and the vibe all wrong.

Full Review | Jun 26, 2009

Pfeiffer is curiously cold and brittle, while Friend never allows us to feel his character's anguish when he realizes the error of leaving Lea.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 26, 2009

This costume drama doesn't have nearly as much bite as [Dangerous Liaisons], though the age reversal of its central romance gives it a certain topicality.

| Jun 26, 2009

This wonderfully gifted actress, whose beauty has sometimes distracted from her abilities, here makes Cheri something rare and haunting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 26, 2009