Film Review: ‘Gemma Bovery’ -- an adaptation of an adaptation

Amid all the graphic novel adaptations about superheroes, here comes “Gemma Bovery” (based on Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel of the same name), whose hero is anything but super.

As the title suggests, Anne Fontaine’s film is not a straight retelling of Gustave Flaubert’s rather better known novel “Madame Bovary,” but a sort of “meta”-version, a descendant that retains much of that novel’s DNA in modified form.

Gemma Arterton plays Gemma Bovery, a present-day English woman who has just relocated to Normandy with her out-of-work husband, Charlie (Jason Flemyng). (Arterton also played the title character in the other feature adaptation of Simmonds’s work, Stephen Frears’ 2010 “Tamara Drewe.”) Their marriage seems good enough, if a bit boring; as does Gemma.

We are told the story by Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), the town baker, who lives across from the new arrivals. Martin is hardly an unbiased narrator: not only is he immediately obsessed with the similarities between the Boverys and Flaubert’s Bovarys, but he is clearly emotionally — or maybe just sexually — obsessed with Gemma herself.

The Jouberts become friends with the Boverys, even though Martin’s wife, Valerie (Isabelle Candelier), quickly tumbles to his infatuation. How could she not? Whenever Gemma comes around, Martin almost seems to go into a trance, gazing at her with his mouth hanging open.

He decides to (in a sense) play the part of Flaubert, trying to recreate the central story of the original novel, to become the “author” of these real characters. This mostly involves imagining — and then interfering — to push Gemma into an affair with rich, handsome Herve de Bressigny (Neils Schneider).

Truth be told, his imaginary efforts are redundant: Gemma and Herve are attracted enough on their own with no help from Martin. It is only when Martin remembers that Flaubert’s heroine commits suicide that his meddling grows more desperate and begins to have an effect. “History repeats itself,” Marx said, “first as tragedy, second as farce,” and “Gemma Bovery” heads off in that direction.

Arterton may be the title character, but Martin is the protagonist. He narrates the story and, with a few exceptions, provides our point of view. He is not an easy guy to spend 100 minutes with. At best, he is comically deluded, living in his Flaubertian fantasy world. At worst — which is how we come to see him by the end — he is simply a monumental creep, constantly ogling Gemma and struggling with his own desire for her.

In his past films, Luchini has often been a one-note performer, and so he is here. We know all we need to know about Martin in the first 10 minutes, and the film begins to try our patience well before the end. Gemma is meant to be shallow and deliberately banal; Arterton projects that perfectly, but it’s a thankless task. The character only seems sympathetic when compared to the awful Martin.

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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).