Gemma Bovery

Tamara Drewe, Posy Simmonds's spoof comic-strip updating of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, was adapted for the screen to amusing effect by Stephen Frears. Anne Fontaine's version of Simmonds's 1999 riff on Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary is equally engaging. British Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton) comes to live in present-day Normandy with her husband. Their neighbor, local baker and Flaubert devotee Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), is struck by the similarity of the couple's names to the unhappy Bovarys. Joubert watches the pair intently, obsessed with the notion that they will suffer the same tragic fate and even concerned that his own fascination will bring the disaster about—a prospect that seems increasingly probable when events start mimicking those in the book, as Gemma enters an affair with a handsome aristocrat and is visited by a former lover. Observing what's happening with a mixture of satisfaction and horror, Joubert repeatedly intervenes to prevent what he fears will be imminent catastrophe. Although Arterton is the nominal star, the film's greatest asset is Luchini, who gives a sly and subtle performance as a man on the outside peering in—a figure whose perspective becomes our own. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include an “In the Footsteps of Emma” making-of featurette (22 min.), a “Master Class with Director Anne Fontaine” (22 min.), a “From Page to Screen” segment (3 min.), a graphic novel gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a winning update on Flaubert's classic novel.] (F. Swietek)