Directed by the congenitally prickly Stephen Frears, starring a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer and based on two novellas by diarist-of-the-demimonde Colette, "Cheri" is set at a time when to ignore societal norms was to incur something other than good publicity (something about which Frears, in his uncredited narration, makes great sport). In other words, it costs to defy convention. And the acknowledgement of that cost keeps "Cheri" from floating away on a cloud of crepe de chine.

Pfeiffer is Lea, a courtesan well schooled in pleasure and the politics of the personal, who is approaching that point where she will age out of her profession (any parallels to Hollywood are no doubt intentional). With Kathy Bates, playing Lea's friend and colleague Madame Peloux, Pfeiffer wends her way through screenwriter Christopher Hampton's insouciant banter with decadent assurance and an eye on the clock, which may be why Lea adopts as her project, and her lover, Cheri (Rupert Friend), Madame Peloux's son and a candidate for early debauchery. What begins as a lark turns into love. And what began as a frothy period piece becomes a meditation on age, passion and the tyranny of the typical.

For all its craft and Frear's tart sense of humor, "Cheri" suffers from being about feelings rather than about a story. Proving that even a sub rosa society has its constraints, Cheri will marry the young innocent Edmee (Felicity Jones) at his mother's insistence, making his wife suffer in her marriage while he and Lea suffer in their separation. All around them, Frears mirrors in people and situations the way they see each other, and fear that others see them.

"Cheri" looks terrific, if a bit gauzy at times, and Frears, who directed Pfeiffer in that other Frenchified frolic, "Dangerous Liaisons," is never at rest. Still, the movie bogs down by going nowhere other than inside its characters, who are intensely passionate but of an era more curious than emotionally relevant.

--John Anderson (June 26, 2009)

Contains sexual content and drug use.