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Isabelle Huppert,
Isabelle Huppert,
Christophe Malavoy,
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Claude Chabrol,
Claude Chabrol
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: MGM
: Drama, Foreign, Romance, France
: 143 min.
: French
: English, Spanish, French
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Literary critics long regarded Gustave Flaubert's iconic French novel Madame Bovary as unfilmable (despite several attempts by Vincente Minnelli and others to bring it to the screen), but Nouvelle Vague architect Claude Chabrol set out to definitively prove them wrong with this Oscar-nominated feature adaptation from 1991, starring Isabelle Huppert (The Lacemaker). Huppert stars as Emma Bovary, a woman whose happiness depends exclusively on elements outside of herself. She spends her days indulging in flights of fancy and endless romantic longings, emotionally estranged from her good-natured but ignorant husband Charles (Jean-François Balmer) a physician whom she married as an escape from her landowner father's farm. Her fate seems poised to change when she meets and falls hard for Rodolphe Boulanger (Christophe Malavoy) - a lover who takes her to bed and then vows to elope with her. Pinning all of her hopes on this, she invests in a traveling costume that she's unable to afford (rendering herself completely in debt with a local millner), and plans to skip town with Rodolphe when the monies come due. Alas, Rodolphe, as it turns out, never planned to follow through with the elopement plans, and promptly abandons Emma, leaving her to face the dire consequences of her foolish decisions. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
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| Hal Erickson is right on
by etaviotal
December 6, 2007 - 8:48 AM PST
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3 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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| When I originally saw this movie I thought it was an adequate adaptation of the novel, but after being wowed Vincente Minnelli's 1949 version I was reminded that a good movie adaptation of a book should add a layer to the story that is made possible by the change in media from print to film. Simply putting a watered down version of the story up on the screen, even if its not poorly done, is like a film version of a play that is essentially the same as it would be if a video camera had been placed in the back of the playhouse. Good books and good plays make use of the strengths of their medias which are not the same as those of film. If a film brings nothing new to the table your time would be better spent reading the book or seeing the play live. I gave this film a lower rating partly for the sin of needlessly remaking a great film and doing a poor job at that. |
| decent adaptation
by MArdovino
February 12, 2004 - 11:24 AM PST
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1 out of 1 members found this review helpful
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| Stylish adaptation of Flaubert- could have been a bit more erotic as the novel but acting is fine. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.66)
35 Votes
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