Pas une critique!

Revu sur ARTE, cycle "Les grands romans du scandale", soirée Mme Bovary.

Late 80s, early 90s, France: cinema was powerlessly facing the return of "french quality".
With an adaptation of one of his favourite writers' emblematic novel, even Claude Chabrol abandoned himself to those prestigious films in the year 1991, forgetting what made cinema, what made him himself.

Long despite some clear cuts from the original material dismissing several clarifying moments about the heroine's nature, this talking book leaves the audience with a simply eternally insatisfied and ungrateful woman, moreover one characterized by the coldness that Isabelle Huppert mistakenly lends her. Those misfortunes might have been forgotten if the film had some style to it but this literary adaptation is highly impersonal. Where was the director when his film was being made, one can only wonder.
There might be something to save though: Jean-François Balmer, a discret but always reliable actor, perfectly fits the character of Charles Bovary. Chabrol's regular, Jean Yanne, does okay as the odious pharmacist.

« Ce qui me semble beau, ce que je voudrais faire, c’est un livre sur rien, un livre sans attache extérieure, qui se tiendrait de lui-même par la force interne de son style [...] » ― G.Flaubert

While the novel and consequently the movie are still about something, the main litterary appeal is entirely lost but not replaced by the strength of filmmaking. A classic book about ennui became a boring movie.

Score: 5/10 (-1,5)
Enjoyment: 3/5 (-1)
To see only if you're in desperate need of a crash course about the novel's plot and have 2h20 to lose on it. (Wich is a bad thing to do.)