For any adaptation of Flaubert's iconic novel to be successful, a primary question must be answered first successfully before going forward. And that question is whether Emma Bovary is a victim or victimizer?
It seems Director Tim Fywell and screenwriter Heidi Thomas decided to take the "victim" route here as was done in another unsuccessful film adaptation in 2014 directed by Sophie Barthes starring Mia Wasikowska.
Frances O'Connor is infinitely better in the leading role as Emma than Wasikowska--with her American accent that sticks out like a sore thumb. It also helps that O'Connor manages not to follow Wasikowska's lead as an over-the-top depressive.
Instead, O'Conner appears to have been instructed to play Emma as a thwarted romantic instead of a narcissist with a real marked sense of entitlement (so successfully conveyed by Isabelle Huppert and Francesca Annis in earlier and later film adaptations).
Everyone here in 2000 is so grim-faced from the outset that we expect the dark shadow of melodrama to creep into the proceedings at any moment. The villain of the piece arrives in the form of recently widowed Dr. Charles Bovary played by Hugh Bonneville, one of the worst casting choices I've ever seen on the silver screen.
The good doctor is supposed to be a pleasant, solicitous, perhaps happy-go-lucky fellow but Bonneville manages to play him as deadly dull and unfriendly, the exact opposite the way character should be presented.
Hence dull Charles is at the root of Emma's longings to escape provincial Yonville and fulfilling her romantic fantasies in a grand city such as Paris.
That is not to say Charles is not a man without faults but without establishing his good nature, he comes off as insufferably unlikable-not what I think Flaubert intended at all.
Fywell and Thomas forget to focus on Emma's moral failures which peg her more as a comic character than a tragic one. Instead, it's all about "lost love" in which Emma's two trysts are played up to the hilt and we're all supposed to swoon.
In the '76 and '91 versions, Leon, the young law clerk is not that demonstrative in his affections toward the beleaguered Emma early on. But here (and similarly in 2014) he's slobbering all over her before finally packing it in and leaving for Paris. The romance angle is played up even on Emma's side, when her fantasies of passionate lovemaking are revealed.
The same thing occurs with the treatment of wealthy landowner Rodolphe Boulanger (Greg Wise) who, with his good looks, is too much of your standard romantic foil to be believable. Left out by Wise is the internal monologue in which he reveals his cold plans of seduction with Emma.
And without hearing those plans, we don't come to realize that he changes his mind and ends up falling for her completely (before realizing that running away with her would not be a good idea at all).
The chemist Homais (David Troughton) is given short shrift without developing the character's anti-clerical bent in which he extolls the science of the day, pitting the superstitions of religious folk against an "enlightened" medical profession.
Ironically Homais is the one who pressures Charles into performing the botched surgery on his manservant Paul (not called Hippolyte as in the novel). Charles shows little backbone when he's quite aware that he's unskilled in performing such an operation, leading to the amputation of part of the manservant's leg.
The continuation of Emma's torrid affair with the insufferably immature Leon is presented as perfunctory scenes of more passionate lovemaking.
With Emma as perpetual victim, all opportunities seem to be intentionally lost in presenting her sadistic side. Note the difference between the two BBC versions when Charles's mother rages about the power of attorney given to Emma.
In the 1975 version, Emma tears up the note and burns it in the fireplace-pretending that she's been defeated by the mother who seemingly has gained the upper hand. But the following scene with Leon she makes it clear (laughing all the way) that she manipulated Charles into getting him to sign a new note.
And even Charles is shown to compliment Emma when he reads his mock missive to Charles out loud, claiming Emma (in effect) as his "cuckolded" lover.
In 2000, Charles retrieves the burning note thrown into the fire by his mother, cradles it and insists he'll take no action regarding taking away Emma's power-of-attorney in the family. Nor is there a proceeding scene in which both Emma and Leon mock Charles for his spinelessness.
Keith Barron measures up to other actors playing the seedy draper, L'Heureaux, and certainly the scenes in which Emma puts herself in debt and finally falls apart are perhaps the best done in this underwhelming film.
I believe that Flaubert's novel was designed as a moral history of his community. No one is spared as all the characters are compromised by a lack of self-knowledge.
I wouldn't mind at all if an intrepid playwright turned the entire narrative into a farce. Instead of Emma successfully committing suicide, I'd love to have her take some white powder from a mislabeled bottle in Homais's pharmacy and then go into hysterics on her "deathbed," until it's revealed she hadn't ingested arsenic after all.
Instead, the family recovers financially but then she runs up more bills with L'Heureaux, and all the bad karma begins again!
It seems Director Tim Fywell and screenwriter Heidi Thomas decided to take the "victim" route here as was done in another unsuccessful film adaptation in 2014 directed by Sophie Barthes starring Mia Wasikowska.
Frances O'Connor is infinitely better in the leading role as Emma than Wasikowska--with her American accent that sticks out like a sore thumb. It also helps that O'Connor manages not to follow Wasikowska's lead as an over-the-top depressive.
Instead, O'Conner appears to have been instructed to play Emma as a thwarted romantic instead of a narcissist with a real marked sense of entitlement (so successfully conveyed by Isabelle Huppert and Francesca Annis in earlier and later film adaptations).
Everyone here in 2000 is so grim-faced from the outset that we expect the dark shadow of melodrama to creep into the proceedings at any moment. The villain of the piece arrives in the form of recently widowed Dr. Charles Bovary played by Hugh Bonneville, one of the worst casting choices I've ever seen on the silver screen.
The good doctor is supposed to be a pleasant, solicitous, perhaps happy-go-lucky fellow but Bonneville manages to play him as deadly dull and unfriendly, the exact opposite the way character should be presented.
Hence dull Charles is at the root of Emma's longings to escape provincial Yonville and fulfilling her romantic fantasies in a grand city such as Paris.
That is not to say Charles is not a man without faults but without establishing his good nature, he comes off as insufferably unlikable-not what I think Flaubert intended at all.
Fywell and Thomas forget to focus on Emma's moral failures which peg her more as a comic character than a tragic one. Instead, it's all about "lost love" in which Emma's two trysts are played up to the hilt and we're all supposed to swoon.
In the '76 and '91 versions, Leon, the young law clerk is not that demonstrative in his affections toward the beleaguered Emma early on. But here (and similarly in 2014) he's slobbering all over her before finally packing it in and leaving for Paris. The romance angle is played up even on Emma's side, when her fantasies of passionate lovemaking are revealed.
The same thing occurs with the treatment of wealthy landowner Rodolphe Boulanger (Greg Wise) who, with his good looks, is too much of your standard romantic foil to be believable. Left out by Wise is the internal monologue in which he reveals his cold plans of seduction with Emma.
And without hearing those plans, we don't come to realize that he changes his mind and ends up falling for her completely (before realizing that running away with her would not be a good idea at all).
The chemist Homais (David Troughton) is given short shrift without developing the character's anti-clerical bent in which he extolls the science of the day, pitting the superstitions of religious folk against an "enlightened" medical profession.
Ironically Homais is the one who pressures Charles into performing the botched surgery on his manservant Paul (not called Hippolyte as in the novel). Charles shows little backbone when he's quite aware that he's unskilled in performing such an operation, leading to the amputation of part of the manservant's leg.
The continuation of Emma's torrid affair with the insufferably immature Leon is presented as perfunctory scenes of more passionate lovemaking.
With Emma as perpetual victim, all opportunities seem to be intentionally lost in presenting her sadistic side. Note the difference between the two BBC versions when Charles's mother rages about the power of attorney given to Emma.
In the 1975 version, Emma tears up the note and burns it in the fireplace-pretending that she's been defeated by the mother who seemingly has gained the upper hand. But the following scene with Leon she makes it clear (laughing all the way) that she manipulated Charles into getting him to sign a new note.
And even Charles is shown to compliment Emma when he reads his mock missive to Charles out loud, claiming Emma (in effect) as his "cuckolded" lover.
In 2000, Charles retrieves the burning note thrown into the fire by his mother, cradles it and insists he'll take no action regarding taking away Emma's power-of-attorney in the family. Nor is there a proceeding scene in which both Emma and Leon mock Charles for his spinelessness.
Keith Barron measures up to other actors playing the seedy draper, L'Heureaux, and certainly the scenes in which Emma puts herself in debt and finally falls apart are perhaps the best done in this underwhelming film.
I believe that Flaubert's novel was designed as a moral history of his community. No one is spared as all the characters are compromised by a lack of self-knowledge.
I wouldn't mind at all if an intrepid playwright turned the entire narrative into a farce. Instead of Emma successfully committing suicide, I'd love to have her take some white powder from a mislabeled bottle in Homais's pharmacy and then go into hysterics on her "deathbed," until it's revealed she hadn't ingested arsenic after all.
Instead, the family recovers financially but then she runs up more bills with L'Heureaux, and all the bad karma begins again!