Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5420 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-13
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 150 minutes

Synopsis
Based on the novel by Gustave Flaubert and starring Frances O'Connor, Hugh Bonneville, Greg Wise and Joe McGann, Madame Bovary is the story of the young, romantic daughter of a farmer who marries a dull country doctor, at least ten years her senior. In her boredom and frustration ahe embarks on an obsessive search for real sexual fulfilment and an idealised 'grand passion', ignoring her devoted husband and daughter and throwing herself into disastrous love affairs and an increasingly self-destructive lifestyle.

Customer Reviews

mme bovary
I watched this right after finishing the novel and found it disappointing. The production lacked the dark edge and ironic humour of the book and the characterisation of Emma was all wrong. O'Conner played her as sweet, almost likeable, whereas in the novel she is cruel to her husband and child, utterly selfish and self absorbed, with a narcissistic tendency to self delusion and religiosity.

The village in the novel is a suffocating place, Emma's house is right on the road and she can see everyone go by and hear the relentless droning of the lathe maker at work. In the novel it was a lot poorer and more rural too. Flaubert wants Emma to be utterly revolted by the world in which she finds herself after her marriage. Charles, her husband, is far more clown-like and stupid than he was portrayed in the film, but Rodolphe was good and Leon too, their differences were well brought out in the film.

If you didn't know the book the film is pleasant enough and easy on the eye but the novel deserves a better, darker and far more serious interpretation.
It is hard to bring a great novel to the screen in all its complexity and richness, but this version doesn't seem to try to come close.

Intelligently Done
Lets face it, Madame Bovary was always going to be difficult to produce. The story really centres around Dr Bovary, and Emma Bovary is his second wife, and you have to read about his first marriage until you get to Emma. Although I am a fan of Flaubert and Madame Bovary, as well as many others, I can also see where a large group of people are coming from when they say that this book is one of the most boring written.Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics) if you would like to read the book.

This production is not a straight transposition of the novel, opening as it does after Dr Bovary has lost his first wife. We see in this drama Dr Bovary getting Emma to become his second wife. Emma has been brought up spoiled by her father. Dr Bovary has been brought up by his domineering mother, and doesn't really have that much gumption. Whilst Emma fantasises about the perfect lives she reads in her novels, Dr Charles Bovary is more pratical. Stuck in the provinces Emma feels stifled and living a life full of drugdery. We must not forget that the full title of the book is Madame Bovary Provincil Lives, and that is what this drama shows. Nineteenth century life in the provinces was a much different existence from the lights and bustle of Paris.

Emma is shown sympathetically in this production, and those familiar with the book will know that a lot of women felt that Flaubert was writing about them. After all, Emma is stuck in the provinces with her husband who is always out on calls, her over bearing mother in law, and no friends or social life. She wants a life that doesn't feel stifled, she wants new clothes, she wants to enjoy herself and have romance. For Emma this leads to retail therapy, but with that age old problem, not enough cash. Those women who have maxed out on their credit cards will know what Emma feels like not being able to have enough money. Emma turns to the draper, who also runs a money-lending business on the side.

So Emma, who can now wear all the latest fashions looks around for romance, and from just flirting takes a lover. To cut a story short, Emma does not find a bed of roses, and eventually after two lovers, a daughter from her husband and bankruptcy, she feels that life is too much to bear, and thus decides to end it all.

What really brings this drama to life is the beautiful and sexy Frances O'Connor as Emma Bovary. Whereas Madame Bovary was banned by the Catholic Church for its immorality, people have always understood what Emma Bovary goes through. This is really a good two and a half hours of viewing.

A thought-provoking production
I met the character of Emma through the novel when studying French at university many years ago and having watched the DVD recently it still has the power to deeply affect me.
Flaubert drew a portrait of a young, naive woman who had many years of growing up to do and sadly did not live to experience it. Much of Emma's behaviour can be excused by youth and inexperience, a girl without a mother's guidance. The stifling actions of a miserable, controlling mother-in-law and boring husband who saw a chance to trap an innocent beauty cannot be so easily excused.
Yes, Emma is naive, selfish and perhaps, lacking in reason. Many women today can identify with her pattern of self-destruction as she pursues her hedonistic lifestyle without consideration of the emotional consequences. Perhaps Flaubert recognised the foibles of women, and of men only too well and the longer I have known this tale the more apparent it becomes.
A riveting story full of the French flavour it requires, great acting and very thought-provoking.