Handsomely mounted, period-perfect and starring the empathetic Mia Wasikowska in the title role, the new “Madame Bovary” narrows the scope and finds a different focus within Gustave Flaubert’s novel.
But stripping away complexity doesn’t just undo decades of politically correct efforts to add justifications for the actions of the bored, repressed 1840s French housewife. Director Sophie Barthes (“Cold Souls”) dares to see her acquisitive, shallow heroine as a villain. That should raise some eyebrows.
We meet Emma during her convent training (poise, posture), followed by her wedding day. Her father is happy to marry her off to a handsome and reasonably well-off doctor (Henry Lloyd-Hughes). But dad lets slip something of Emma’s nature in a toast that mentions “all these ideas in your head.”
Emma has just enough knowledge of the world to feel that the provincial life they settle down to in tiny Yonville is depressing. The sylvan forests and bucolic farms and cottages may enchant us today. She sees them as her trap. Dinner chat limited to “Any patients of interest today?” consultations with a priest — her only sounding board, who doesn’t see or hear her desperation — that’s her future.
But Emma has a rescuer. The pushy shop owner Monsieur Lheureux, played with a greedy purr by Rhys Ifans, labels her “an elegant woman of taste” and proceeds to show her the fine dresses, curtains and furnishings a lady of her refinement must covet. Put it all on her account.
She isn’t flighty enough to fall for the romantic but callow law clerk Leon (Ezra Miller, more at home in a boy band than a period piece). But Emma is still doomed. And not just because of the attentions of the dashing Marquis (Logan Marshall-Green). Her desperate desire for a richer life will impact her marriage, her husband’s practice and others as the house fills with the finer things and her neediness leads to affairs.
Barthes, who co-wrote the script, emphasizes Emma’s isolation (no peers or girlfriends) and her gullibility. She leaves out the passion for romantic novels that fed Emma’s fantasies and taught her there was a wider world out there. But the film also omits some of her affairs and the daughter she had with Charles, which made her social striving seem even more selfish on the page. Paul Giamatti plays the pharmacist Homais, charming, pushy, but stripped here of his ulterior motives.
Still, Wasikowska nicely gets across Emma’s boredom and dullness. This is a character who can’t quite articulate her ennui, who sees things as Monsieur Lheureux tells her to, “possess what you love.”
Perhaps it’s the “Real Housewives” era that conjures up thoughts of the original “realist,” Flaubert, and his greatest novel, as we’ve already been treated this summer to the tarted-up dark comedy “Gemma Bovery,” inspired by his book. This latest “Bovary”, sumptuous as it is, only hits the tragic highlights and connects her, firmly, with the Culture of Acquisition. It still plays, but doesn’t really move us. So purists have every right to look down their noses at it.
“Madame Bovary” (2½ stars)
Mia Wasikowska plays the literary character Emma Bovary with a nice touch of ennui, bringing a bit of villainy to the classic character in director Sophie Barthes’ film. This version of Gustave Flaubert’s “Bovary” hits much of the tragedy and is a bit cold, turning away from the story’s complexity.
Rating: R, for some sexuality/nudity
Showing: Sundance Cinemas Seattle
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