I was expecting Cheri to be among this year’s late film festival offerings, but the explanation for the no-shows at Venice, Telluride and Toronto are best explained by the production dates — Stephen Frears spent the better part of the summer filming his follow up to the massively popular The Queen. This means that the picture could be ready for a Berlin Film Fest presence, but distribution companies who own the picture such as Miramax (who own domestic right for the U.S) and powerhouse Pathe (who own U.K and France rights) are going to be looking towards Cannes 2009 to present this film and Frears will have probably started working on prepping for the great screenplay called Selma, about Martin Luther King, Lyndon Baines Johnson and the civil rights marches that changed America.
Scripted by Christopher Hampton, Colette set her book in 1920s Paris, where the young son (Rupert Friend) of a wealthy courtesan is educated in the ways of love by a middle-aged friend of the man’s mother. When he is forced to give up the six-year relationship after marrying someone else, the young man can’t forget her and retreats into a fantasy world. I imagine Michelle Pfeiffer’s character of Lea de Lonval is a central part of that fantasy world.
Here a look at the poster one sheet used at the Cannes market.
