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There’s something about Gustav Flaubert’s towering literary achievement that seems nearly impossible to translate to cinematic language. Perhaps it’s the insular nature of the prose? The way that its critique is both ambiguous and acidic, especially towards its titular heroine, maybe more like anti-heroine, is something that’s difficult to capture under even the greatest translations.
This version of Madame Bovary is not one of the greatest translations. It’s not the worst, but it’s merely there existing. There’s no grand shock of Flaubert’s ending here, as the film opens with Emma Bovary’s death-rattle as she stumbles around the woods and eventually collapses. This Emma Bovary is envisioned as a woman placed in a stranglehold by the patriarchy and blown about by the various men that seduce then toss her aside. Not a bad choice for a new stylistic interpretation, but it doesn’t feel fully formed.
There’s plenty of somber scenes of Mia Wasikowska’s Emma staring blankly around her house or engaging in dispassionate love affairs that threaten to destroy her reputation and homelife, but that only goes so far to explicate the deeper truths that Susan Barthes’ direction is trying to unearth. I wasn’t convinced of Emma’s plight and the film’s frigidity and withholding made her appear more as a petulant brat than something struggling for agency and choice in an oppressive atmosphere.
It doesn’t help that Wasikowska’s two lovers feel grossly unsuited to period films, and there’s little to no chemistry generated between them. Ezra Miller is a fine actor, but he doesn’t look or feel right in this specific period as there’s something too modern about his whole being. Logan Marshall-Green is given little to do besides look beautiful and act like a dick. These two are supposed to be the grand love affairs and rejections that push Emma over the edge? Madame Bovary doesn’t generate the sensuality necessary to make us invest in these relationships. It winds up being a perfunctory Sunday matinee of a costume drama and nothing more when the ideas behind the adaption go frustratingly teased but never blossom.
