My first thought on leaving the theatre after watching Stephen Frears’ crisp, elegantly turned new effort is that it is, in many ways, a consummate Frears film. My second thought, however, ran counter to the first: it has, over the years, become increasingly difficult to define what “a Stephen Frears film” might be.

We are talking about a filmmaker, after all, who deals in polarities, following up the broad music-hall frivolity of the ghastly “Mrs Henderson Presents” with the austere docu-realism of “The Queen,” or a glib studio bauble like “Accidental Hero” with the jagged domestic comedy of “The Snapper.”

The uncharitable could call Frears something of a dilettante, subsuming his own long-term artistic preoccupations beneath a veneer of versatile professionalism. That, however, would be to miss the keen emotional detail and bone-dry irony that lace themselves through all of Frears’ best work.

Whether he finds them in a Chicago record store or an 18th century French chateau, Frears dissects his characters with an amused, academic precision that inevitably reveals the Oxbridge intellectual he is – and it’s a sensibility that meshes beautifully with the prose of Colette, who in 1920, wrote “Chéri” in much the same tartly tragic register that Frears and screenwriter Christopher Hampton tell it. (I discussed the novel in greater depth here.)

Contrary to the shrill period rom-com that the trailer appears to be pitching it as, “Chéri” remains a cutting, economic study of love thwarted by the twinned obstacles of aging and social expectation. Painstakingly mapping the end of the affair between the eponymous 25 year-old playboy (Rupert Friend) and Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer), the world-weary courtesan twice his age, it becomes something of a dual coming-of-age story, as the lovers are forced to accept the indignities of adulthood and middle age, respectively.

It’s a cruel tale, realized in unabashed miniature form by the filmmaker and his typically hand-picked cast and crew. If it runs the risk of occasionally seeming too small, too bijou a narrative too sustain the lush cinematic treatment Frears has afforded it, that’s because, true to its source material, the film is not conceived as a great romance so much as a clear-eyed character study.

If occasionally disguising the film in the outward trappings of a frothy corset-porn romp is what it takes to bring such an unhappy, unflattering evaluation of human nature to the screen, then so be it. The truth outs eventually, thanks to Hampton’s unsentimental interpolation of the novel’s wonderfully acerbic dialogue, and a pair of astute, well-attuned lead performances – most notably a stunning return to premier form for the long-languishing Michelle Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer commendably doesn’t shy away from the character’s theatricality, fully embracing Léa’s diva properties with hyper-studied body language and the vampish glee with which she tosses off such lines as “I can’t criticise his character because he doesn’t have one.” But the actress offers a strikingly unguarded flipside to the character’s rigid, overly put-together façade, evident in lovely details like a disappointed mid-orgasm face-fall, or the hasty, too-motherly tone with which she reproaches Chéri for flipping cigarette ash in her jewelry tray.

It’s in the moments that bridge these two modes of behavior, however, that the performance is most compelling. Her exquisite final scene, culminating in Léa recomposing herself in the mirror as her lover’s fate is articulated in voiceover (a far more graceful allusion to the events of the novel’s sequel than had I expected from Hampton’s adaptation) could form the bedrock of what would be a well-deserved awards campaign later in the year.

It’s a daunting star turn to contend with, but Friend, fresh from his film-stealing turn in “The Young Victoria,” holds his own. Some have complained of the detached nature of the performance – missing the point in the process – but it succeeds because Friend pays equal attention to capturing Chéri’s louche, disaffected air while demonstrating just how much work goes into it.

Only Kathy Bates, as Chéri’s wily battle-axe of a mother, misses her marks slightly, blustering through Hampton’s zesty banter to sometimes entertaining effect, but often playing the comedy in too high a key compared to that of her co-stars. She delights in the character’s blatant vulgarity, but in doing so neglects her more calculating qualities, rendering the novel’s delicious battle of wills between her and Léa somewhat lopsided on film.

Bates is not entirely to blame, however; Frears himself takes some time to acquire complete tonal control over the material. He does so eventually, and the film blossoms as a result, resulting in an elegiac and surprisingly moving final act.

But the film gets off to a rough start, its opening 20 minutes stifled by choppy scene transitions and Frears’ own plummy, too-whimsical-by-half narration (the tone of which suggests that the director only took on the task because Stephen Fry was unavailable). It is, thankfully, a short-lived misjudgment: as the tensions between the characters come into relief, the narration falls away (only to return in a more sober, suitable register at the end) and the whole enterprise begins to breathe, and ultimately, to sing.

If that sounds like a compromised proposition, rest assured there is plenty to delight in even during the film’s wobblier stretches, not least its pristine technical properties. Consolata Boyle’s impeccable costumes rise above mere spectacle, affording each player a distinct, character-serving palette and silhouette, lovingly caught in Darius Khondji’s dusky lensing. Alexandre Desplat’s wistful, Belle Epoque-infused score, meanwhile, is a triumph; no composer today treads the line between restraint and romanticism with such finesse.

These contributions add up to a film of small, refined pleasures – “a Stephen Frears film,” unmistakably, and his most stylish and rewarding since “High Fidelity,” at that. Not everyone will respond to its cool reserve, but “Chéri” matches the scale of its delicate literary source, and serves its epicurean characters rather well.

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• Frears’ ‘Chéri’ to premiere at Berlin
• ‘Chéri’ trailer … finally