‘ Simple country living’ gets interesting in this tale of infidelity without baggage
Gemma Bovery Rating: Starring: Gemma Arterton, Fabrice Luchini, Jason Flemyng, Niels Schneider, Mel Raido Directed by: Anne Fontaine Running time: 99 minutes
Self- absorbed, self- pitying but also entirely self- possessed and sexually empowered, Emma Bovary marked a landmark shift in the dimensions of female character because her fall wasn’t a study in archetypal victimhood. It was a meditation on the pursuit of popularity and social status as measures of personal meaning, and on that score, it seems Gustav Flaubert was about 150 years ahead of his time because transplanted into a modern context, the story of Madame Bovary looks more than familiar. It looks prophetic. Bored with her quaint country life, Emma Bovary screwed around with a variety of partners and eventually paid the price for her slack morals: She croaks, oozing black bile from her dead maw as the men essentially stand impotent around her grave.
It’s tragic, but also comic, and director Anne Fontaine finds every nuance of the absurd in Flaubert’s 1857 masterpiece via her cheeky update, Gemma Bovery.
Based on Posy Simmonds’ novel, which essentially rebirths the character of Emma in a modern context, Fontaine picks up the story in the idyllic landscapes of Normandy, very close to Flaubert’s home. We watch baker Martin Joubert ( Fabrice Luchini) knead the dough for tomorrow’s baguettes. There is ancient artistry in his motions, but the bread comes out burnt, because while Martin can bake a loaf just fine, his heart isn’t really into it. He and his wife left the city for the romantic notion of a simple life in the country, only to discover rural living is just like city living, only way more boring.
Needless to say, Martin is tickled when he sees Gemma and Charlie Bovery ( Gemma Arterton and Jason Flemyng) move in across the street with their little white terrier Carrington. Not only is Gemma gorgeous to look at, but as a hardcore fan of Flaubert, Martin immediately sees the connection between Emma and Gemma, and begins tracing the parallel lines between them, certain he can predict Gemma’s future from Flaubert’s prose.
Inevitably, anyone familiar with the original book will do the same, which means Martin is our touchstone and a reflection of the modern self: nervously aware of looming dangers, yet somewhat oblivious to his own ability to affect the outcome. As a result, when Gemma’s actions duplicate those of her literary alter ego, Martin stands back to watch the denouement from his living room window.
We, too, become voyeurs to the eventual fall, but thanks to actor Luchini’s befuddled sweetness in every moment, Fontaine and her entire cast create more comic moments than tragic ones, which make the exercise feel surprisingly fun.
Arterton conjures just the right balance of empathy and damnation, while the men all look like weak losers.
Fontaine is clearly having a good time revelling in the creases of desire and infidelity, and so did Flaubert. And frankly, that’s what makes the French sensibility so refreshing: it’s void of all the puritanical judgment sewn into the underskirt of female sexuality elsewhere, and gives everyone a free pass when it comes to libido.
Without all the social baggage, sex is sex and women are allowed to enjoy it — at least for a little while, until their souls are processed, weighed, and smashed like so much Sevres on a Canada Post conveyor belt.