Madame Bovary

I'm a person who searches IMDb guidelines for this, but found none. So, just a warning to others who feel the same as I do.

The book - I read it one day before I watched the film on DVD - is (as often) much better. It sounds like a cliché but it's a fact. It's difficult to understand the motives of Madame Bovary and one simply needs hundreds of pages to describe what's going on in her mind.

Of course the movie omits many details of the original story. Yet the actors who perform the personages of Bovary, Homais, Lheureux and many minor roles are cast well. However, Frances O'Connor is not a credible Madame Bovary. I think it is difficult to find a actress for this complicated character. I could not help imagining that Emma Thompson might have been a much more sympathetic and understandable Emma Bovary.

Yet I think the BBC deserves a 7 out of 10 for this attempt to represent Flaubert's masterpiece.

I've got to admit that Madame Bovary isn't my one of my favorite literary works, but I've watched several adaptations nonetheless. This was a fairly intelligent attempt at adaptation, with a pretty good script, but it was ruined for me by some casting misjudgments and a misguided decision to use nudity and explicit sex.

It takes some doing to make a woman as misguided and blinkered as Emma Bovary truly sympathetic (one of my major problems with the book), and though Frances O'Connor is a good actress, she often comes across seeming merely like a spoiled brat. She seems even more so because the decision was made to have her speak out loud so many things that Emma only thinks in the book. But I think the negative impression I got of this Emma is less due to her, perhaps, then to the other cast. I think it was a major mistake to cast somebody so obviously manly and sympathetic in the role of her husband as Hugh Bonneville (in the book Charles was really a dork) and such lightweights as Greg Wise (who looks stupefied most of the time) and -- well, I've forgotten what is name was -- as Leon. You definitely have to question her preference from them over Charles.

The various explicit nude sex scenes really add nothing, and often lead us in the wrong direction. Is it merely a difference in sexual technique that makes Emma unsatisified by her husband, but satisfied by Rodolphe? You can look at these scenes for hours and never find out. By the way, what is this about Emma apparently liking rough sex (her first time with Rodolphe, when he makes her bleed). Where was THAT in the book??! But most of all it was a mistake, I think, because Emma focuses as much on romance as on sex, and these scenes completely miss that.

I was mainly disappointed in this try at the book. Beautifully photographed, though.

Real late to the game . . .

Anyway . . .

As far as direction, casting, & most of the production - considering it's a period piece -this movie is done pretty well, Probably worth a solid 8 for those basic things.

Unfortunately, I give it a 2 because it is totally lacked rating, and seemed to be pigeon-holed into being really only about a dissatisfied, immature woman who fulfills her lusts. True enough, in essence that IS what the story is about. This movie adaptation did try to delve more into the internal dynamics of the main character if indeed that was the intention, but this internal narration was shallow & repetitive.

I've never read the book, but we all know that usually the movie is by necessity, as well as often uneccesarily, very lacking and/or critically changing the authors real intent. This is the second version of this movie I've seen, and tho somewhat better done than the other in some ways, I still would not have bought this (Amazon) DVD if it had shown an R rating.

This was a TV movie - so I assumed it was PG-13. Apparently the explicit scenes were cut from the TV version, because I did not see the most explicit scene listed in the parents guide.

(however, I have since posted it) Typically, usually, 'made for TV' movies are PG-13. The DVD cover has no rating either, I suppose because it is a BBC film . . .?

However, it is definitely an R movie, not only for obvious reasons but thematically as well, not for the kiddies. And in my opinion, also unecessarily over-indulgent and condescending in its explicity for adults.

The story here, if forced to be explained concisely-in a nutshell-very basically, is about a particular woman with a sexual addiction.

Some of the movie is told - randomly - thru Emma's internal thoughts as we watch her move thru life discontented at every turn. Her attention to morality appears to be nothing more than a pretense: she's actually coy, using a 'front of morality' as a challenge to her pursuers to chase & break her, which doesn't take much, due to her immaturity.

One could possibly say that the two main points of the film seem to highlight the disgust, jaded views, or some motivation of the author and/or the movie maker to portray as follows; First the weak man; The doctor, somewhat weak minded, acquiescing sort of man, still under his mothers thumb, always diplomatically trying to please his mother & wife. Simply a mostly passive, insecure, whipped guy, tries hard to be non-confrontational, will excuse anything to try to get along. Possibly has some sexual repression and/or disfunction as we are shown Emma quite bewildered on her wedding night. The viewer is left to infer men are fairly easily controlled and led.

Then Emma, the 'tragic' female, who's dissatisfaction is born mostly of immaturity & her own lack of knowledge, as well as her own selfishness. Dissatisfied at every turn, she indulges her lusts (addictions) whether sexually or materially, becoming more unhinged & tyrannical, only rushing faster to her ultimate downfall - the viewer is left to infer the portrayal of women as weak, immature, sexually immoral, self-indulgent, not naturally nurturing, and totally inept at managing anything financially due to all the previously mentioned traits.

Bewteen these two - loss & ruin is inevitable.

Along with all that, there's the portrayal of the rather over-bearing, demanding, vocally opinionated mother-in-law, trying to control this obvious disastrous, impending ruin.

Overall, what is portrayed is a peter-pan-syndrome husband that symbiotically fit perfect with a wife's tinker-bell magical-thinking-immaturity; Emma and her husband are a perfect match - for all the wrong reasons.

At least the mother-in-law finally lets go of her reigns, wisely bowing out before more events culminate in the family doomsday onthe horizon.

The most entertaining character was Emma's charming, sweet, & cute old father.

But all the actors played their parts well.

One interesting thing, although it may or may not have been intended - is the relevance of a different era then, today, and all the decades between as it adequately portrays the lives of an addict and a co-dependent.

Emma is basically a sex & material-things addict. She indulges all her lusts, which overrides her responsibilities as a wife and mother, and even as a daughter, and these things brought herself, husband, & child to ruin as well.

We see the doctor-husband being the epitome of co-dependency, constantly excusing, in denial (turning a 'blind eye'), and trying to fix, hide, cover up, etc.

Under that lens, the movie is relevant across all eras of history regarding addiction, co-dependency, and enabling.

Just about everyone has some level of familiarity with these dynamics which seem to occur more & more often in so many families via prescription or street drug addictions, addiction to food, sex, and many other kinds of addictions.

Madame Bovary is a European literary classic but also very difficult to adapt because of the complex situations and characters(which can easily become skimmed over or one-dimensional). This adaptation is not going to please everybody and definitely does fall short of the book but it is a good attempt and has a lot of good aspects to it. It does get off to a slow start, with the adaptation getting much better quickly pacing-wise but not fully recovering. The execution of the sex scenes are also a mixed bag, for this viewer there was no problem with their necessity, some were sensual but others were a little too gratuitous. And the adaptation does suffer at times from incompleteness, some scenes could have had more time dedicated to them like with the Waltz, a scene that did agreed need more daring tension. Visually though it is a wonder, really beautifully photographed and the production values are true to period with rich colours and a great dark atmosphere which was much appreciated. The dress that Emma wears in the Cathedral is most envious. The music has an elegance and foreboding, not too satirical. The script occasionally does plod but is very literate and does capture the book's dark edge and ironic humour. There is also a real sense of French provincial life being very suffocated, very important and captured very well.

The story while not as complete as one would like is at least coherent and has much darkness, pathos and irony. The characters are more complex in the book certainly but they are equally so to pull off on screen because most you don't feel much sympathy for and it is easy to make Emma too bitchy or too sympathetic. But there is eye for characterisation here, Emma and Charles are different and Marie Louise can come across as a caricature to some but everybody else is spot on and generally there does seem to be respect for the source material with the knowledge of its adaptation difficulty. The direction is fluid, at times efficient without rushing and at others languid without lacking pulse. The performances are fine. Frances O'Connor takes a noble stab at possibly one of the most difficult literary characters to portray and does so with pathos and vanity, there is definitely a sense of Emma being a rather insufferable person but with O'Connor you can't help feeling some compassion for her. Hugh Bonneville is a commanding and comparatively mild-mannered Charles, while Greg Wise captures Rudolphe's eroticism, menace and suavity outstandingly well and Hugh Dancy's Leon is gentle without being dull. In support, standouts were the sly L'Hereux of Keith Baron and Eileen Atkins' Marie Louise, who steals her scenes although their roles are not exactly big. All in all, has many great things and a few things that definitely could have been done better, a respectable if comparatively underwhelming adaptation. 7/10 Bethany Cox