The director Stephen Frears was in Berlin yesterday for the warmly received world premiere of his first feature film since The Queen. Chéri marks a reunion between Frears, Michelle Pfeiffer and the screenwriter Christopher Hampton 21 years after all three collaborated on Dangerous Liaisons. There are obvious similarities: both stories are French literary period pieces, and both concern cynical libertines consumed by romantic feelings they once dismissed as sentimental nonsense. But the parallels end there. Chéri takes place 150 years later and is much lighter in tone.

Based on the 1920 novel by Colette, Chéri is a tragicomic love story set in early 20th-century Paris, during the twilight of the “Belle Époque”. Pfeiffer plays Léa de Lonval, a veteran courtesan who is long past “un certain age” and considering retirement. To help a former colleague and rival, Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates), Léa agrees to spend a few weeks dispensing womanly wisdom to Peloux's 19-year-old playboy son Fred, aka Chéri (Rupert Friend).

But their harmless fling blossoms into a full-blown romance that surprises everyone, not least the lovers themselves. Six years of quasi-marital bliss pass, until the Machiavellian Peloux arranges for Chéri to marry the daughter of another courtesan. His tortuous separation with Léa follows, leading to bitter confrontation and botched reconciliation.

Frears handles this slow shift from romantic frolic to mournful elegy with a pleasingly light touch. Hampton's crisp screenplay keeps it lively with a steady flow of dry quips and acerbic one-liners. Pfeiffer's performance is magnetic and subtle, her worldly nonchalance a mask for vulnerability and heartache.

Unfortunately, the character of Chéri feels bland and colourless. A willowy, floppy-fringed Orlando Bloom-a-like, Friend is no match for Pfeiffer and unconvincing as an object of romantic, lustful obsession. A seasoned femme fatale such as Léa would eat him for petit déjeuner and be bored to tears by cocktail time.

But if we overlook this key flaw, Chéri is a mostly undemanding pleasure, and very easy on the eye. Frears and his team shake off the stagey cobwebs that often clutter period drama by shooting in airy Art Nouveau interiors ablaze with silks, brocades and pearls. The film's palette is a pastel-heavy mix of lavender and sepia, eggshell blues and lightly rouged fleshtones, evoking the retro charm of colourised Victorian postcards.

The perfect look for this breezy, bittersweet fondant fancy of a film.

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