ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Armand it is portrait of a period. correct, not bad as adaptation but soulless. only images, frozen acting, precise colors, interesting costumes. the specific note - fear to give force of all. Kathy BBates is amazing but it is not a surprise. Rupert Friend explores, in smart manner, each possibility of his character. Michelle Pfeiffer is almost a beautiful statue because her role seems be a straitjacket. and the problem is the subject - an effervescent universe who is reduced at few lines. sure, it is director choice to use only a sketch, with few delicate colors who reflects the spirit of period, to suggest a frame more than picture and his work is well. but the novel presents more possibilities. so, best choice after its end remains to expect a better version .

sandover It is difficult to do justice or condemn this film. From the start it hits a jarring note: cards flying like swift balloons (while the air blows out of them?) of plump fin-de-siecle belles and then the bony Michelle? This is something else than tongue-in-cheek.The design, the palette, the clothes are sumptuous, sometimes stunning. Also, particularly the stage set, is so self-knowingly, amusingly, coldly theatrical. I mention this because in such demi-monde, quasi-moral tales the sets set the tone, either of the narrative, of the allegorizing moral, of the wry, detached humor, or of the quasi-queasy lifelessness.Oh! It is the Belle Epoque - a funnily voiced narrator always intrudes, as if to mock the moral tone of such a proceeding and also to pinpoint the self-mockery of what he narrates - and a courtesan high and slowly retired falls for a so much younger lover, the son of a "colleague", while entertaining a detached air and the illusion that experience can be bemused and amused by passion, having achieved some sort of self mastery.It all proves so misinformed; the couple, after six years on the frothy float of erotic bliss, runs out of the proverbial champagne: we are introduced to the moment of crisis with just enough foregrounding in the beginnings of their liaison, and introduced in a bizarrely appropriate way: Cheri trying on a pearl necklace debates whether he should have it, since it looks so much better on him. It is deliciously epicene the way it is presented, with just the right amount of clueless poutiness by Cheri and strikes an ominous note that in a way is matched only in the end, after a painstaking cinematic, wandering arch. They seem to know they run out of champagne, but they still want to dissolve pearls in it, for the taste and the thrill. The problem with this film is the directorial approach: I am not sure I have grasped what Mr. Frears tries to accomplish after decades of film-making, that much being sure: the film's looks are too sumptuous for them to match the guignol sensibility of Colette's subtle humor. But let's say, leave it as it is, let it be more on the English side (or to the American one with Kathy Bates being as continental as a burger) than on the French one. Mr. Frears is usually portraying women, but his method here fails: an empty face in the end (reminnicent of Glenn Close's at the end of the "Liaisons"), is what it makes it awkward: I do not think Colette invested in any sense of tragic morality. Instead her tone is more mischievous, as suits the French. That does not mean she is not sympathetic to her characters, but rather that it is out of this sensibility's context if one saves or loses face. I would go as far as claim that Colette would not subscribe to the notion that women have a face; it is difficult with such a claim to achieve mischievous entertainment.It is also jarringly funny the fact that Colette and Rupert Friend, courtesy of make-up and wig, look alarmingly alike. Was this a way-too-inside note for Colette's lesbianism? Anyway, as it is, the film's rich cinematography captures the pearly perfection of Cheri's skin-tone, courtesy of Mr. Friend's English complexion.Perhaps one should take the ending titles as a key to how one should watch this film: panels slide one on top of the other; panels of letters evoking amorous ones, panels of tapestry evoking interiors where painful and delicious meetings take place, and screens behind which people get naked and clothed.

selffamily the elegant and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer is ageing and her last great romance has faded, leaving her alone and wealthy. Let's put something right here - the ladies in this film were NOT prostitutes, they were courtesans, something totally different, like serial monogamous mistresses if you like. A concept totally accepted in Europe, especially at this time. So taking on the responsibility of her younger 'godson' at the request of his mother, another retiree, she whisks him away to the country and they begin his education, which turns into a relationship and which goes on for several years. His mother becomes twitchy for grandchildren and arranges a marriage for him, and the lovers part, clearly unaware of the pain that this will trigger. And so it goes - their actions and reactions form the rest of the story, which is beautifully drawn, sumptuously dressed and depicted with class and glamour. My only query is why American Actors and British Actors? Otherwise, a beautiful film, well portrayed and I look forward to more.

sjb_can While I thought the idea of the movie interesting--a May/December romance with Lea, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, being much older--it was distasteful that Michelle's character was like an aunt to the nineteen-year-old Cheri, played by Rupert Friend. There was a hint that Cheri's mother, Kathy Bates (who I always love), wanted the affair to occur to keep Cheri out of trouble. That seemed a bit creepy. As for the romance, there was no chemistry between Lea and Cheri, and no character development for Cheri, even though the movie was named for him. He remained sullen, brooding, immature and amazingly dull, although I don't blame Rupert Friend for the performance. I think the script, direction and editing were to blame, if not the story itself. The love scenes were tasteful but not believable. The pair were together for six years, but the relationship didn't seem to have love or even lust at its core, just a boredom being filled with champagne and satin sheets. Michelle was the reason my rating was a 3 rather than a 1. She did a good job with what she had to work with and I was invested in her character. However, the character was ultimately a disappointment. I think we were supposed to come away with an experience of a slice of French culture (courtesans) during La Belle Epoque, but it didn't work. I was stunned to see a car pull up to a country house; it seemed out of place. The director had no idea how to set the time and place properly. The overlong verbal narration at the beginning and end of the movie was not only annoying (I hate being told what should be shown) but it didn't tell us things helpful to the story. The voice-over at the end was particularly awful because Cheri's entire life's arc was given three sentences. If they had edited that out, I may have been able to nudge my rating to a 5.