GEMMA BOVERY

France/UK,, 2014 99 minutes, Colour.
Fabrice Lucchini, Gemma Arteton, Jason Flemyng, Isabelle Candelier, Neils Schneider, Mel Raido, Elsa Zylberstein, PiP Torrens, Edith Scob.
Directed by Anne Fontaine.


Possibly a lot of people looking at the advertisements of this film will think that publicists and poster designers have made quite a mistake in spelling Bovary as Bovery. But, it is not a mistake, This Bovary is Gemma, rather than Emma. And it is a 21st century story based on a graphic novel – with acknowledgements to Gustave Flaubert and his 19th century classic, Madame Bovary.


All the way through audiences might be wondering how seriously to take this story, with its parallels with the 19th century, similarities and differences.

The focus of attention is on Martin, who has worked with a publishing firm but has retired to take over his father’s bakery in a quiet Normandy town. He is married and has a son whom he considers a fool. While he enjoys his work, his dissatisfied in his marriage so that when an English couple move in as neighbours, and his and their dogs become entangled, he is pleased to have made the acquaintance of Gemma Bovary who is there with her husband, Charlie, a restorer of antiques. Martin lets his eye rove, becomes preoccupied about Gemma, often intervening for her well-being.

This is all rather credible because of the performances. Fabrice Lucchini is Martin. He is one of France’s best actors, always worth watching, often performing quite different roles, a subtle interpreter of his roles. Gemma Arterton portrays Gemma and Jason Fleming is her husband.

The husband has to be back in England at times and Gemma, feeling restless and alone, begins a sensuous affair with a young student, Herve, Neils Schneider, whom she encounters by chance. Of course, this has an extraordinary effect on Martin, who goes to some lengths to stop the affair, writing a letter to her in the name of the student, while copying it from the text of Flaubert’s novel. When the couple have broken valuable porcelain owned by the young man’s mother, Gemma enlists the help of Martin to write a letter to the lawyer about the damage.

Charlie returns, there is a crisis, with Gemma having to decide whom she really loves – complicated when she goes to visit some friends to do some decorating work and finds a previous lover visiting them.

Feature of the film is a rendezvous in Rouen, with attractive vistas of the Cathedral, exteriors and interiors, when Martin hopes to meet Gemma, imagines her in the Cathedral, but then finds that the car she was travelling in has broken down, and the fantasy dissolves.

There is a climax which combines the tragic with the mundane, including bread, field mice and arsenic – even eliciting titters of laughter from some of the audience, which again somewhat undermines the seriousness of the plot.

And, just when we are accepting what has happened to Gemma, to Charley, to Martin and his wife, the son who is considered a fool plays a very amusing trick on his father, who falls for the trick and will be humiliated.

Someone commented that the end of the film seems rather daft. It does. But, while many audiences will be charmed by the story, by the character of Gemma and her experiences, others might think (as does this reviewer) there is a touch of the ado about very little.




1. The title? The parallels with Flaubert’s novel, the similarities, the differences? The same Normandy countryside?

2. The parallels, real, contrived, explicit, implicit?

3. How serious the treatment? Martin, his infatuation? Gemma as ordinary, relationships, her affairs, her husband? Action off the screen? The joke at the end? The 21st century treatment of relationships and sex rather than 19th-century treatment?

4. Cast, French and English? The use of both languages?

5. Martin, working at the publishers, returning to Normandy, seven years, his father’s bakery, the detail of his work, the different breads and croissants? His wife and love for her, calling his son dumb? Seeing Gemma? A sexual awakening for him after 10 years?

6. Charlie, burning the goods, the diary, Martin taking it, reading it, the flashbacks?

7. Memory of the Bovery’s arrival, the English neighbours, the dogs chasing each other, his helping with carrying things? The language, the visits to the baker’s shop, Martin’s growing preoccupation? With his wife?

8. Charlie, restoration work,Gemma and her work, loving each other, tensions rising, Gemma and her boredom?

9. The chance encounter with Herve, his life, age, study, beginning the affair, passionate? The breaking of the statue? His mother, her demands? Gemma visiting, her encounters? His love for her, her enjoyment rather than love? Martin writing the letter from Herve, using the novel? Gemma upset, phone calls, going to the house, Herve’s mother coming to Charlie’s house, demanding the statue, accusing him of stealing? Gemma the discussion about the statue?

10. Charlie hurt, Gemma wanting to talk, the phone call and the message in London, his happily returning?

11. Gemma, the visit to the friends for work, meeting Patrick, the memories? The past relationship? Going to Rouen, his coming to the house, his request, Gemma and the bread, her choking?

12. Gemma and Martin, his visits, the episode with getting out the sting? Going to Rouen, the catherdral, like Madame Bovary, his vision of her praying, seeing the van and Patrick?

13. The request to write the letter,his being tongue-tied?

14. The mice, Gemma’s fear, arsenic and his forbidding it, her buying it, his killing the mouse?

15. The death, his presumption of arsenic, the truth his bread?

16. Charlie and his sense of guilt for attacking Patrick?

17. The banality of death by bread? Each of the flashbacks, Patrick trying to save her, Charlie assuming Patrick was accosting her?

18. The diary and her final entry, decision to return to Charlie?

19. The funeral contrast with the fireworks?

20. Herve, grief and the flowers?

21. The new neighbours the joke about Anna Karenina?