Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend in Cheri

Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend star in a steamy new movie that will be released in June called Cheri.

The movie is an adaptation of the 1920s novel by French author Colette about the lingering effects of a romance between a middle-aged woman and a wealthy young man. Sounds a lot like The Reader.

Colette set her book in 1920s Paris, where the young son of a wealthy courtesan 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.

The film’s website says:

It is turn of the century in Belle Epoque Paris and a scandalous romp is underfoot. The sensational tale begins as the ravishing Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer) contemplates retirement from her renowned stature as Paris’s most envied seductress to the rich and famous. Her plans are cut short when she is approached by a former courtesan and arch rival, the barb-throwing gossip Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates), who encourages Lea to teach her disaffected 19 year-old son – a bon vivant nicknamed "Cheri" (Rupert Friend) – a thing or two about women. The resulting escapades involve power struggles over sex, money, age and society – and, unexpectedly, love itself – as a boy who refuses to grow up collides with a woman who realizes she cannot stay young forever.

Hollywood has cougar mania.