Import Week 2025, Day 6: Cheri 2009

Sorry for the delay in Day 6, folks!  I had to fix the Latest Comments column, which went belly up on us and turned out to be a lot trickier to repair than it was to implement in the first place.  Anyway, it's pumpin' away, knock on wood.  So let's get into today's film, which is Cheri from 2009, a neglected little gem still relegated to DVD-only status here in the US.

I get it if you guys are looking at me a little askance for this pick.  I'd avoided this movie for a long time, too.  This came at a bad time in Michelle Pfeiffer's career: after her peak, but before audiences might've grown interested in seeing her make a comeback.  I only got around to it eventually because it's Stephen Frears, who I'd hardly consider consistent, but who always at least has potential; so it got stuck on my very long "one of these days" list.  To my surprise, it was great, and I had to have the blu-ray.  It's a smart adaptation of a pair of 1920s novels by the mononymous French author Collette.  Pfeiffer's on point here, but she's bolstered a lot by a killer supporting cast including the haunting Rupert Friend, sure thing Kathy Bates and a pre-Star Wars Felicity Jones.  Cheri is its own thing, but you can definitely sense that this is by the same filmmaker as the great Dangerous Liaisons, which also starred Pfeiffer, of course.  And indeed, playwright Christopher Hampton adapted them both, so this is a bit of a reunion.  Unfortunately, there was no blu-ray.  At least here in the States, it was a DVD-only release. 

Miramax released it a new release in 2009.  But this film really deserves a blu, and sadly, Miramax holding the rights is a bad sign.  For a long time, I was trying to find an affordable copy of the Australian blu-ray from Icon, because Australia's the one naturally English-friendly country that released it in HD.  But it's been out of print for so long, all I could find were $100 copies or some beat up ex-library disc.  The only other edition is from a company called Lumiere in the Netherlands, and I couldn't find any reliable reports on it.  Does it have forced subs or even a dub?  Is it 1080i?  Does it have the extras from the DVD?  Well, eventually I gave up and rolled the dice.  Worst case scenario, it would make for a good post on my site to warn you guys against it.  So, is it any good?  Let's see.

2009 US Miramax DVD top; 2009 Icon NL BD bottom.

Miramax presents Cheri in 2.36:1, while Lumiere gives it to us in 2.35:1.  The shift in AR results in a tiny sliver extra picture along the top and bottom of the blu.  Otherwise, it's another standard case of the same master being used for both discs, which especially makes sense this time, as they're concurrent releases.  Same colors, contrast, brightness, etc.  But the HD boost is real.  To the people in that carriage have lips?  Only on the blu-ray.  Clicking back and forth between screenshots, you can see the film pop to life.  You can tell Pfeiffer's wearing earnings on the blu, but not the DVD.

The DVD gives us the English 5.1 mix in Dolby Digital with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles.  Lumiere bumps that mix up to DTS-HD, but drops the optional subs if you needed 'em, only offering Dutch ones.  That's one benefit the Australian disc would've had.

The DVD actually had a couple light special features.  There are two brief deleted scenes and a short but otherwise rather good 'making of' featurette that interviews the cast and crew on location.  There's no film clips, so there's not a lot, but it's all quality stuff.  Fortunately, the blu has 'em, too (and yes, so does that Icon BD), albeit still in SD.  It also has the theatrical trailer, which the DVD neglects, and a couple of bonus trailers.

So it turns out this Dutch disc is perfectly viable.  I've been burned before, but not this time.  And it's a lot easier to find that that Aussie disc.  So I'll conclude Import Week 2025 with this firm recommendation.  But don't worry, I've got a couple big boutique new releases for ya next.

Controversial Blus: Dangerous Liaisons

Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted for the screen multiple times before (Les liaisons dangereuses in 1959), during (Valmont in 1989) and after (1999's Cruel Intentions, 2003's Untold Scandal and 2012's Dangerous Liaisons), but Stephen Frear's version remains the best known and more or less definitive version. Not that it's particularly faithful to the novel, or the popular stage play, but its cast, its portrayals, and its icy close-ups are, I think I can say, iconic. I'm not usually a fan of John Malkovich or Keanu Reeves; but everybody perfectly embodies their characters (despite making no effort to be French like their setting), including Glenn Close, Uma Thurman, Michelle Pfeiffer and Swoosie Kurtz (who was also in Cruel Intentions), to the point where when you're discussing any version of the story, it's easiest to refer to the characters as "John Malkovich," "Glenn Close," etc.

One of the reasons it's so popular, I'm sure, is that it's one of those rare Richard III-style stories where the protagonists are conniving villains who bring you into their scheme. But where Richard breaks the fourth wall, Malkovich and Close do it through heated, private exchanges. Kurtz has just brought her daughter, Thurman, into a society from a sheltered convent life, where she was kept to remain "pure" for her arranged husband (played perfectly by Jeffrey Jones in Valmont, but who we never actually see in Dangerous... he's only referred to). Jones once spurned Close, so now she's out for revenge, so she asks Malkovich to seduce Thurman before her wedding night, to spoil her chastity. Malkoich has his sites on another woman, however, a very married Pfieffer, and it turns into a manipulative contest between Close and Malkovich to see who can pull the most peoples' strings for their own sadistic whims. It's pure scandal as everybody is seducing everybody they shouldn't, and the stakes get higher and higher until they become deadly. What could be more fun?

Now, Warner Bros 1997 DVD was a very early release, so their 2013 was quite a long-awaited upgrade. I've got both, so let's see just how much of an upgrade we've gotten, shall we?

Warner Bros' 2013 blu-ray on top; and their DVD on bottom.
...As if anyone would need to be told.

Lights on...

...lights off.

I was all prepared to write about how the DVD wasn't even anamorphic, but my memory has done me a disservice. It is indeed anamorphic. The DVD has a duller palette and flecks that have been removed for the blu (i.e. just over Uma's right ear in the last shot). The framing is basically identical, though the DVD is a bit taller. It's ever so slightly pillar-boxed, practically invisibly in the overscan area. The DVD almost looks like it was filmed through a thin, dirty gauze that was then removed for the blu-ray.

But the blu-ray isn't perfect... It's presented on a dual-layer disc, which is nice, but the actual scan still seems to be under 25GB. More notably, there has been a little discussion, started on the Home Theater Forums, about how, in certain scenes, "the image is jittering so it's uncomfortable to watch." An official review on blu-ray.com referred to the comment, saying, "A poster on another board who received an early copy of this title reported major distortion commencing with chapter 6 (when Valmont visits the peasant home) and spoke ominously of a 'botched job'. I have now played the review copy on three different setups (a Panasonic BD-50, a PS3 and a BD-ROM drive) and have seen no such problem."

The jittering can be observed in this shot, among others.

Well, I have to admit I didn't notice anything during my initial, casual viewings. But after reading about this, I took a close look for this review, and I certainly do see it. And my blu isn't any advance, early copy - it's a regular, retail copy I didn't buy until this 2015. And while I'd agree with blu-ray.com's writer that calling it a botched job is a bit extreme, the jittering is there. I can't say it makes the scene uncomfortable to watch, however. When I first spotted it and saw what he was talking about, I thought, nah, it's just an issue with this exterior shot having been shot hand-held, so the camera's not steady. But like the original commenter says, when I fired up my DVD copy to compare it, the jittering isn't there, and the shot is quite steady. So maybe the film got a little loose in the scanner or something? I don't know. Warners did screw up here a bit, apparently, but it's really no big deal in my estimation. After all, it took me a good while to confirm for myself that the issue even existed.

Oh, and while we're comparing transfers, I have to note that Warners old DVD is a flipper (and packaged in a crapper snapper to boot!), with an alternative full-screen transfer on the other side. Let's look at how that's been modified for your 4.3 television...

I'm not even going to bother saying which version is on top and which is on bottom.

Yuck. There is a little extra info at the top and bottom, but at the expense of having the sides chopped off. I'm guessing it's Pan & Scan, but I can't bring myself to watch it long enough to say for sure. It's a junk, 4:3 transfer; that's all we need to know.

The extras department provides another strong motivation to upgrade. While the blu isn't exactly loaded, it's light years beyond the DVD, which has nothing, not even bonus trailers for other WB titles. The blu-ray has a 4:3 trailer, and much more enticingly, an audio commentary by Frears and screenwriter Christopher Hampton. Frears has a few nice anecdotes and insights, but mostly seems at a loss for what to say during an audio commentary. Fortunately, Hampton seems to understand how these things works and does most of the heavy lifting, talking about the production, changes from the novel and the stage play, and how he left Valmont to rush Dangerous Liaisons into theaters first. It's a very good commentary, and all the more rewarding as it remains the only extra for a film with a lot of story behind it.

Dangerous Liaisons is a delicious tale, and this is still the ultimate adaptation that really doesn't have to worry about "holding up" over the decades, and has yet to be replaced by its many attempted successors. And while this blu may not be 100% perfect, it's a rather compelling disc, quite a leap forward from what we had, and the best we're likely to see anytime soon.