Madame Bovary

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.

In the Nineteenth Century, the widower countryside Doctor Charles Bovary (Jean-François Balmer) meets Emma Rouault (Isabelle Huppert), the spirited daughter Mr. Rouault (Jean-Claude Bouillaud) that is his patient and farmer, and soon they get married to each other. They move to Tostes and soon Emma feels bored with the simple lifestyle of her husband. Charles moves to Yonville to please his wife and she feels astonished by the ball of the Marquee. During an agricultural fair, Madame Bovary meets the womanizer Rodolphe Boulanger (Christophe Malavoy) that seduces her, and they have a love affair. When her naive husband falls in disgrace after an unsuccessful surgery of the clubfoot Hippolyte (Florent Gibassier), Emma despises him. She meets Boulanger with more frequency and spends a large amount using the credit with the Merchant Lheureux (Jean-Louis Maury), expecting to leave Charles and travel with Boulanger to Rouen. However, her lover sends a letter to her ending their affair and travels alone. Emma gets ill and during her recovery, she travels with her husband to see an opera in Rouen, where she meets the young Leon Dupuis (Lucas Belvaux) that becomes her lover. When her debts with the trader Lheureux reach eight thousand francs, Emma tries unsuccessfully to get a loan to avoid the execution of the pledge. Hopeless, she takes a dramatic ultimate decision that affects also her family.

I saw "Madame Bovary" by Claude Chabrol for the first time on 14 May 2000 and I found it a great version of the Gustave Flaubert's novel. However, the magnificent original version of 1933 of the tragic romance "Madame Bovary" by Jean Renoir was released in Brazil a couple of years ago on DVD and I have recently seen it. Today I have just watched again the very well made 1991 version of "Madame Bovary" on DVD, but after watching the Jean Renoir's version, I found Chabrol's remake absolutely unnecessary since it does not add anything to the 1933 first version. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Madame Bovary"

Note: On 31 December 2024, I saw this film again.

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.

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