Michelle Pfeiffer stars as a ravishing Parisian courtesan who takes a naive young man half her age, Cheri (Rupert Friend) into her boudoir to teach him few things about women. Cheri learns all too well and turns out to be her perfect match. Their affair is pure pleasure as they trade light-hearted romantic barbs and indulge in their delicious, upside-down chemistry until they fall in love. However when Cheri 's mother, Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates) wants to match him to a girl his own age for marriage and break up their relationship, no one is prepared for what truly lies beneath their affair.