Pfeiffer is luminous in tale of debauchery and tragedy

Beneath all those ruffles, flourishes and hoop skirts, the movies keep informing us that hot love affairs existed long before texting, Googling or even stereophonic sound. France in the early 20th century provides a convenient distance and an opulent setting for the love affair between the characters played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend in "Cheri."

He is 24 years younger than she, but since she is Michelle Pfeiffer, there is not likely, initially, to be a complaint. Cast as Lea de Lonval, a wealthy courtesan, Pfeiffer may be older, but she's no less striking than ever - one of the great beauties of modern cinema. As my mother would have said, she's "holding on" and holding on very nicely, thank you. He is Cheri, the son of Lea's friend and rival courtesan.

Pfeiffer looks in period this time - a change from the way she all but ruined Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" (1993) by looking too modern for the historical setting.

Kathy Bates, as Cheri's mother, Madame Peloux, all but steals the movie as a rowdy old madam who fixes things - always to her liking. She assigns her son to Lea as a kind of finishing school for sexually spoiled boys. He is by no means a virgin, but he is rather careless. They fall in love. She, who has made a fortune via her former lovers, pays for everything. They are together for six years.

Things change when Peloux decides it's time to marry him off to someone his age. He's so self-indulgent that he goes along with the plan, only realizing later that the only one he really loves is the older woman in his life. She is miffed but puts up a brave front by running off to the south of France and taking other young lovers. From this apparent debauchery we are asked to believe that tragedy can develop.

It's all based on two of Colette's most popular novels, "Cheri" and the sequel "The Last of Cheri" from the 1920s. Colette is surely best known as the author of "Gigi," which was turned into the famous musical, but here we learn that she wasn't writing just about the night they invented champagne. As in "Gigi," she was writing about courtesans who train themselves to please men and reap fortunes from their efforts. Colette divorced her last husband at age 51 in the same year she had an affair with his 25-year-old stepson, so it seems she researched her plot thoroughly.

The British playwright Christopher Hampton has adapted the two novels into a light diversion that, as directed by Stephen Frears, offers a sumptuous feast in costuming and sets. Frears and Hampton dealt with more serious sexual cruelties in another historical drama, "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988), again starring Pfeiffer.

If you like historical settings and are tired of noisy action movies that are aimed at 14-year-olds, "Cheri" can fill the time, even though it is not an important film.