Gemma Bovery

MA15+

2014

99 mins

Directed by Anne Fontaine
54%
43%
Comedy
Drama
Romance

Gemma Arterton leads this French-English romance, from the director of Coco avant Chanel. Co-stars Fabrice Luchini (In the House) as... More

Gemma Arterton leads this French-English romance, from the director of Coco avant Chanel. Co-stars Fabrice Luchini (In the House) as a Paris baker and family man, who takes a very keen interest in his new next door neighbour Gemma (Arterton), a passionate young Englishwoman. Adapted from the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds (who made the graphic novel that led to 2010’s Tamara Drewe, also starring Arterton).

"Gustave Flaubert's novel of romantic yearning, Madame Bovary, is the inspiration for another imaginative recasting of a timeless masterpiece... Gemma Bovery embraces the melancholy of Flaubert's great book whilst placing it against the bucolic wonders of the verdant Norman landscape. Fontaine's film naturally orbits around its young, married protagonist (Arterton) — in this telling an Englishwoman named Gemma who moves into a small French village with her husband (Jason Flemyng). Also at its centre is Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), a baker who has only recently fled Paris, along with his long-suffering wife, in search of stability and equilibrium. Martin rapidly takes a proprietary interest in the English beauty and falls under the spell of her charm. Gemma's passionate nature is ill-served by her husband, and it's not long before her eye starts to wander." (Toronto Film Festival)

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Gemma Bovery | Ratings & Reviews

54_%90 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes® rating
43_%817 reviews
Audience score rating

"Last time I saw the superb Fabrice Luchini, he was obsessing over a gifted teen with a talent for literature in François Ozon’s In the House. His role isn’t much different in Anna Fontaine’s film, playing a married-and-bored baker obsessing over his gorgeous new neighbour Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton) whose life unfolds eerily similar to that of his beloved novel – Madame Bovary. But while his character in Luchini’s film powered his co-lead’s narrative, Fontaine turns him into a mild obstruction in Gemma’s story. It makes Gemma Bovery a frustrating experience in hindsight."

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Flicks

"Think of Gemma Bovery as an airy puff pastry, dripping with honey."

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The New York Times

"What almost rescues the film is Arterton’s performance."

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The Dissolve

"Viewers lured into seeking hidden significance in Gemma Bovery may themselves be the butt of the joke."

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Sydney Morning Herald

"It benefits from Arterton's genuine sex appeal, which is delightfully balanced by Fabrice Luchini as her neighbour obsessed with the novel and who sees worrying links between her and the fictional heroine."

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Screen Daily

"As pure entertainment it certainly does the job, although much of the text's existential weight is lost in the process."

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Hollywood Reporter

"Arterton is captivating as Gemma, but Luchini steals the film as the magnifique Joubert, his lust for Gemma often rendered innocent (or impotent) by his wonderful, Buster Keaton-esque deadpan face."

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