Cinematic escapism is not always viable…
The last few films I’ve watched and books I’ve read have been really worthwhile and enjoyable. Those kinds of experiences that you feel like endorsing to others with lines like: you will love it! I really think you should see it! I definitely recommend it, etc. However after watching Cheri I am singing a very different tune. Watching it was like having each pubic hair removed from your left testicle by a militant lesbian feminist brandishing an epilady machine – painful and frightening.
A brief synopsis of the film is as follows: a young man (Rupert Friend) comes from money (his mother was a very opportunistic whore- quite literally) and lives a very extravagant yet unfulfilling existence. Apparently driving a nice car between bouts of lazing on his mother’s estate and drinking her liquor is insufficient for happiness. However this young twat falls in love with some old decrepit slag (Michelle Pfeiffer) and they reveal to us the joys and pains of living with no stress and loads of money. The relationship ends when Friend realises that Pfeiffer is too old for him and he is much happier with his young wife who does not make him feel like a granny-shagger… Until he realises that he can’t live without his geriatric fetish and shoots himself.
The film from beginning to end was an attack on the senses. The annoying narrator introduced us to the pathetic cast of this ridiculous film. Over-the-top performances were delivered in largely American attempts at generic, inaccurate time-piece British accents for a film supposedly set in France. It was enough to make even the most tolerant movie-goer tear out hair and assault the employee at the ticket counter in sheer exasperation – and a very real attempt at shaking the feeling of having been duped.
This vile, grim display of the era’s wealthy class left me with absolutely no desire to learn anything more about these pompous, hedonistic, economic and social fascists. The only real emotion I felt, other than rage, was the sheer pity for the lives of the servants. A particular scene revealing their plight was when one slave had to dry off the bathed body of Pfeiffer as the old bitch kept ranting on about some useless insight into her life.
What made the film remotely entertaining was the comfort I took in knowing that I could write about it here and hopefully ensure some unsuspecting bastard does not waste the time or money on this shit-fest. The only thing worse than this is going to be the film about the editor of Vogue: the modern day equivalent of self-absorbed ageing tarts with too much money, ego and insufficient will to just fuck off and die.
