"Chéri is a period-piece about shallow, immoral and deceptive people, yet its ultimate observations are deep, its resolution moral, and its strength is in how deceptively it reaches those conclusions.
It’s ironic, but we feel the weight of immorality only after denying its existence for too long. Yes, deep down, we know what we’re doing is wrong, but we’re too caught up in the thrill to acknowledge what our conscience gently counsels. That’s the tone Frears captures here. When the characters indulge, the film indulges along with them. When they despair, the film despairs with them. Yet where many films romanticize the reckoning, Chéri offers no grace.
Its morality only emerges at the very end in one quiet gut punch of a final moment. We feel it—not because we’ve been preached to all along, but because it’s the only direct moral swing the film takes, and it’s timed perfectly."
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