CHERI - BELLE EPOQUE MISTRESSES IN FRANCE : A FILM ABOUT AN OLDER COURTESAN AND A MUCH YOUNGER MAN

Lea, acted by Michelle Pfeiffer, is a French, pre- World War I Paris, Bell Epoch courtesan who has, until she meets a certain younger man, she calls Cheri, prideful of not ever really falling in love enough to be hurt.  Cheri was turned over to Lea by a somewhat older courtesan, a bit of a rival, who wants her son to get a good education in sex.  Now that she has fallen in love and done her job well, her rival match-makes her son with an age-appropriate and pure young daughter of yet another Courtesan. 

Lea uses all that she knows about being a woman, sex but not just, to get him back.

Taking place at a time when some Courtesans became wealthy, independent women by investing their money right, we none-the-less realize how small their world and opportunities are.  What they want for their children is a more normal life and a rise into respectability.

Lea wins the young man back. How can he forget his perfect lover when his wife is so, well, inexperienced?  In actuality Lea must turn him away when he comes back to her. an act of the most ferocious, selfless love. Her wisdom as she approaches mid-life is heartbreaking, which is why this is a good, thought-provoking and entertaining film.  And it's great to see the actress Kathy Bates in a role in which she is seductive.

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  film review  Missy Rapport

A GOOD WOMAN : MRS. ERLYNNE AS THE WISE MISTRESS

Mrs. Erlynne, is acted by Helen Hunt, as the 40ish Serial Mistress who sets her sights on Amalfi, Italy for a season in 1930.  Mrs. Erlynne hasn't actually been married for years and she understands what motivates her and why she has chosen the lifestyle she has, considering the bad reputation she must endure.  Marriages isn't for her; generally, it's boring.

Scarlett Johansson acts as newlywed Meg Windermere who is vacationing with her husband. New to marriage and assured of her status in her set, she's been raised by a relative believing that her mother died when she was young.  Beautiful, trusting and sweet, the town gossips fill her in on the wicked ways of the world, but before her innocence can be robbed from her, Mrs. Erlynne shows up, and the gossip about the woman intrigues her.

Mrs. Erlynne, a Serial Mistress, is also a wise woman. She is quite expert at having men pay her bills - until their wives shut down her lines of credit.  Said to have fled New York and unpaid hotel bills, why is she really in Amalfi?

Is she, as the gossips say, a common prostitute, or a woman trying to make her way up in high society by eventually marrying the right man, someone who can live with her sins?  

In the end, Mrs. Erlynne decides she will not reveal her important secret to Meg, and allow her to believe her dead mother is her guardian angel.

Helen Hunt's mistress rather aches with repressed emotions.

C 2017 film review Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

ENEMIES A LOVE STORY based on the book by ISAAC BASHIVIS SINGER

Ron Silver, as the man Herman Broder who has Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of his Holocaust experiences, Angelica Huston as the wife who was thought to be dead in the Holocaust, but who comes to New York alive - their children dead, Lena Olin as the mistress (who is married to another, older, man and lives with her mother), a Holocaust survivor who was in the camps, Margaret Sophie Stein is the Polish peasant who saved his life and who he wed out of gratitude. She wishes to become a Jew and becomes pregnant.


Herman loves all these women in different ways.


A fine work by Issac Bashivis Singer, full of complexities. Such situations did happen post World War II. The Red Cross (there's a link in the Kathleen Kennedy month) did it's best to reunite people who were separated by the war and the death camps and to this day will try to help people locate lost relatives. I'll never forget the first time I saw an old man survivor with his Nazi death camp tattoo, a number on his arm, dehumanizing him. Since then I've attended Holocaust memorials, gone to hear a Shindler's List survivor speak, and learned a lot about Naziism.