Madame Bovary

I agree with the consensus here that this film adaptation is largely unsatisfying. However, I question whether Flaubert's masterpiece can ever be translated graciously to the screen. I suspect that a novel famous for having every word exactly in place, and whose appeal lies as much in the relentless poetic flow of its prose as in the brutally frank psychological characterization of its heroine (and a few other characters!), may be forever out of the reach of other media, and might best be left to pursue its own life on paper.

I also agree that Ms. Huppert's portrayal is cold, but I've always seen Emma as being that way. After all--she's nuts. Crazy people are seldom full of human warmth. Emma Bovary is among the select handful of fictional characters neurotic enough to have given their names to a pathological condition (in this case, bovarism).

It's always possible to admire a movie for its visual beauty, and this one wins hands-down in that category.

But if you want the full impact of the wretched, wrenching story--you have to go back to the book. I applaud Mr. Chabrol for trying, even if he didn't succeed, to make a perhaps impossible adaptation.

The story is slow, but so is the book.

What made this movie for me a good reflection of the original, is Isabelle Huppert acting. I felt her joy, anticipation, misery and over-reactions. It honored the complexity of this character. One part of me wanted to like her and understand her. The casting of her husband was perfect, watching him annoyed me too. The other part wanted to shout "get on with it, woman." Next to the slowness, I disliked the casting of Rodolph because there wasn't a single moment that I liked him but there again, story-wise that wasn't such a bad element.

Although one should mainly rate a movie on film merits, I can't help being a fashion lover. Next to Isabelle Huppert, my other main reason for the 8: the dress design is gorgeous.

In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire (Emma Rouault) marries a dull country doctor (Charles Bovary). To escape boredom, she throws herself into love affairs with a suave local landowner (Rodolphe Boulanger) and a law student (Leon Dupuis), and runs up ruinous debts. This film version closely follows Flaubert's novel and includes most of the famous scenes, such as the wedding, the ball, the agricultural fair, the operation on the clubfoot, and the opera in Rouen.

"Madame Bovary" was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film as well as for the Academy Award for Costume Design. It was also entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival where Isabelle Huppert won the award for Best Actress. As she should.

As with any great work of literature, this story has been adapted again and again. But I might have to say this is the definitive version, almost epic in its length and breadth, and a solid attempt to stay true to the novel. Typically I favor earlier in carnations, and by 1991 there were many... but this now is the one any future version must be measured against.

Strangely anaemic version of Flauberts classic novel.This movie looks wonderful ,meticulously recreating a French country town in the mid-Nineteenth Centuary , but singularly fails to inject any life into its characters.

The main problem is the normally excellent Isabelle Huppert's performance as the eponymous Madame B,not only does she fail to register any real emotion,far less do justice to the many facets of Flauberts creation,but at 39 ,she is,frankly, just tOo old for the role.

The Film is also severely hampered by a leaden script that commits the cardinal sin of adapting a great novel,it employs the device of having a narrator read large chunks of the book.One would think that the 1974 Version of "The Great Gatsby" had amply demonstrated the folly of this approach.A voice-over reading portions of the source-novel is just not cinematic.

The BBC's 2000 TV production was a much better attempt at capturing the atmosphere of the Novel as well as the complexities and contradictions of the central character.

I am usually the most avid of Chabrol fans, but with Madame Bovary he finally made a real turkey. This film is dull dull dull. I probably could have abided the tediousness and the fastidious faithfulness to the book if the film had a lead actress who was even remotely credible in the lead. But Huppert is woefully miscast as Emma. Emma Bovary is supposed to be a passionate woman who recklessly throws herself into adulterous affairs. Huppert plays Emma as an ice princess, about as passionate as a bowl of oatmeal! Huppert achieves the astonishing feat of maintaining the same facial expression throughout the film; at times I wondered if her facial muscles were paralyzed. This would have been a perfect role for Isabel Adjani...too bad. Read the book instead.

6/10