Cheri (2009)

[lsanderson]

Michelle Pfeiffer, left, and Rupert Friend in a scene from “Chéri,” based on a novel by Colette.
May-December Love Can Lead to Discontent
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: June 26, 2009

“One who is abnormal must never feel abnormal,” the French novelist Colette once wrote to a friend. Instead, he or she thinks, “What is this world full of monstrous pigs who are different from me?” What words to live — or rather to write — by! Born in an age of corsets and legalized prejudice (1873-1954), Colette scandalized society with her colorful life, lovers of both sexes and demimonde characters. Her inspirations were artists not of the pen but of the bedroom, women whose idea of the bottom line, to quote the critic Judith Thurman, “was 50 thousand a year and a villa of one’s own — with a big garden, a great chef, and a pretty boy.” More