Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Red-Barracuda Madame Bovary enters an unhappy marriage to move up the social ladder. From here she indulges in a number of illicit affairs that leads to serious complications.First off I have to say that I don't really know anything about the novel from which this was adapted. From what I have briefly read it seems that it was considered unfilmable for some reason. Having seen this movie now, it does have to be said that it is a slightly odd costume-drama. Its story isn't especially romantic and it's not the most focused narrative overall. While I would say that Isabelle Huppert puts in a strong performance in the lead role, it's quite difficult really caring too much what happens to her. None of the characters in the film are particularly sympathetic. I guess the blame for this has to go to director Claude Chabrol. I have seen several of this director's movies from his late 60's early 70's heyday and have to consider myself a fan. All of those films were morally complex but contemporary stories. Madame Bovary shares some of the moral ambiguity but has an unfamiliar period setting. Chabrol directs the film in a somewhat cold manner, making it difficult to empathise with anyone. However, that said it's still a compelling film. The first half is pretty ponderous but it picks up steam in the second as the twists and turns in Madame Bovary's life are ramped up. So not classic Chabrol by any means but an interesting diversion all the same.

dbdumonteil This was Claude Chabrol's intention and it's easier to say than to do. Gustave Flaubert's novel was so rich, undulating that any adaptation in images can only be reducing and simplistic. More than the tragic story of its heroine, Flaubert's novel encompassed a word picture of Normandy (the bulk of the film was shot in the village of Lyons-La-Forêt near Rouen) and a cruel, cynical vision of the world. If the first feature is satisfying on the screen, the second one is hardly perceptible. Hence, this crucial question: is it possible to fully recreate Flaubert's novel? Chabrol's film is faithful to the main plot with the rise and fall of her heroine sometimes told by François Périer's voice-over in spite of accelerated views on certain vital episodes, notably the peasant marriage that disgusted Emma Bovary. On the other hand, the crest of the novel (the ball to the marquis) found a perfect equivalent in Chabrol's film with this shot which goes through the turning dresses creating thus a whirlpool. The glittering life Emma dreams of instead of a dull one with her mediocre husband Charles.Chabrol is buoyed by topnotch interpretations. Even if Isabelle Huppert is a convincing Emma Bovary, a woman whose messy dreams and follies badly conceal boredom and disgust of her condition, the other main actors steal the show with Jean-François Balmer as the perfect, narrow-minded Charles Bovary, Christophe Malavoy as unfaithful Rodolphe Boulanger and Jean Yanne as the unscrupulous chemist Homais."Madame Bovary" is aesthetically a refined work with lush scenery and lavish costumes that recreate rural life in Normandy in the middle of the nineteenth Century. But Chabrol doesn't break new ground with this adaptation that required something else than an elegant directing, a brilliant cast and splendid scenery. That's why his rendering of Flaubert's work is just an honorable reading of the novel in the end. One could also add that Flaubert's book was a solid opportunity for an onslaught at provincial lower middle class. But it's only skimmed over and it's a wasted bonanza.Chabrol's reading of "Madame Bovary" amounts to the same result as Claude Berri's adaptation of Emile Zola's epic novel "Germinal" in 1993: honorable instead of being unforgettable, a commendable action instead of a ground-breaking creation. The author of "le Boucher" (1970) was rather on the wrong track but fortunately, he'll find his way again the following year with another woman depiction: "Betty" (1992). Georges Simenon's universe suits him much better than Flaubert's one.

Hammerfanatic46 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.

William J. Fickling 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