First Words on 'Cheri' Out of Berlin are Positive

No doubt, here's an Oscar contender

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Tuesday, February 10th 2009 at 4:27 PM

Thanks to Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere we get our first report from the Berlin Film Fest as Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter brings positive word on Stephen Frears's Cheri, the film I featured only a week ago as a potential Oscar contender for Michelle Pfeiffer among many other in the cast and on the crew.

Cheri is an adaptation of the 1920s novel by French author Colette (Gigi) about the lingering effects of a romance between a middle-aged woman (Pfeiffer) and a wealthy young man (Rupert Friend). Set in 1920s Paris, where the young son of a wealthy courtesan (Kathy Bates) 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.

Honeycutt calls the film the first big hit of the festival and I was happy to hear him at least mention The Countess, a film starring, directed by and written by Julie Delpy as she plays the 15th-century Transylvanian "Blood Countess" Erzsebet Bathory, who bathed in the blood of murdered girls in an attempt to retain her youth, as opposed to previous features that extrapolated more literal vampire tales out of them. He doesn't give any real impression on the film, but the fact he mentioned it is enough for me to believe it is at least memorable.

Cheri doesn't have a Stateside release date yet, but I assume Miramax will hold it for a late year Oscar run and as for The Countess it doesn't even have a distributor.

You can get more on Cheri right here including 23 photos.