Madame Bovary

First, the short summary at the top of the IMDb page COMPLETELY MISREPRESENTS the plot of the movie and novel. Madame Bovary is not simply cheating on her husband to advance her social status.

Her affairs are part of a much more profound struggle for transcendence from the ordinary life in which she feels trapped. That's why the novel is a classic of modern literature. The way IMDb puts it makes it sound like a cheap Lifetime movie.

Second, Mia Wasikowska is a fine actress but I've always imagined Madame Bovary as a much more sensual woman.

Third, I think Ezra Miller was terribly miscast as Leon Dupuis. Not to disparage his acting, but he's far too young and effeminate to be an object of desire for Emma Bovary.

While the film was beautifully shot, it otherwise doesn't quite do justice to Flaubert. Perhaps my expectations were too high.

There's no sexual appealing at all for this actress to play the Bovary role. There's no character development at all from a housewife then becoming a adulterer. We couldn't feel anything from her inside; always with the similar facial expressions, it never changed a bit. She made Madame Bovary a very boring woman. A terrible wrong cast, maybe the worst one ever!

Mia Wasikowska as Emma Bovary is one of the worst casting decisions I've ever seen. I read the book quite a while ago but I remember picturing her as pretty, delicate, vivacious, fun-loving, lively, romantic, naive and gullible. Wasikowska projects none of these qualities. Emma is supposed to transform into a depressed, frustrated, shadow of her former self, dulled by her uneventful country life with a dull husband she doesn't love before turning to other men and recklessly spending money she doesn't have to bring some excitement into her life.

In the movie she seems to meet her first male distraction the day after her wedding and then falls in love with the marquis simply by looking at him, demanding he rescue her from her disappointing life and sweep her off to a high society life almost immediately. Incidentally, the first time they see each other is during a stag hunt, when Emma rides astride her horse - surely not in rural France during the mid-18th century?

Emma seems to attract men like flies, although I can't see anything in Wasikowska's Emma that would attract any man.

And what's going on with the accent mash up?! Most of the characters, including Emma, sound American, but her father has a French accent, others sound English and Rhys Ifans... I don't know what is going on there but sometimes he sounds slightly French, sometimes purely French and at other times completely English.

The most frustrating thing about this film is that there is no sense of time passing. Everything seems to happen within a couple of weeks.

Visually though, it is beautiful and there are some excellent moments and scenes. Watch it for the gorgeous costumes and setting if not the actors or the plot!

Casting is totally off. Charles Bovary is supposed to be a large, good-natured, undemanding drudge of a man, hard-working and country bumpkin-ish without any slim, well-tailored glamour. Instead we get this svelte, firm, and resolute executive type with patent-leather hair. (Don't know if he ever did it, but the young Gerard Depardieu is the perfect physical type.) This is important because her spouse's rustic dullness as she perceives it has to be seen in the actor chosen. The Emma character has no obvious allure in this adaptation. Why are these men so attracted to her beyond an impression that she'd be "easy"?

The whole plot involving Leon's legitimate reasons for visiting the house is mangled, as is the genesis of the attempt by Charles to correct Hippolyte's medical issue and the surgery's outcome. Boneheaded decisions abound, such as the decision to change the sumptuous, romantic ball that quickened Emma's economic and sensual envy into a grubby, sweaty stag hunt. Worst of all its many bad decisions, this film totally eliminates the Bovarys' baby daughter Berthe, whose existence is essential to our understanding of how huge the final tragedy really is and its domino effects far beyond Emma and Charles.

I rarely write reviews but, when such violence is done to one of the great works of world literature, I do get annoyed. Apart from a bit of recognition for production values including cinematography, sets, location detail, costumes, I have to give this sloppy, bloodless and point-missing attempt the welcome it deserves.

I loved the novel and was looking forward to the movie. Stopped watching when I first saw Leon. This actor is too young for that role. The color of his voice, his laughter, the look on his face, the overall expression - he looks 18. That ruined the movie for me. What on Earth were they thinking?! Emma would never fall for a guy like that.

Oh, talking about Emma... Seriously? Mia Wasikowska? The same way I think they made a mistake with choosing Keira Knightley for Anna Karenina, I think she would have been much better choice for Emma, in this case.

OK, enough of bad criticism now. This movie looks expensive and very endearing for the eyes. Both, the costumes and the scenery look realistic. I would imagine XIX century France like this.