Madame Bovary

I agree with the consensus here that this film adaptation is largely unsatisfying. However, I question whether Flaubert's masterpiece can ever be translated graciously to the screen. I suspect that a novel famous for having every word exactly in place, and whose appeal lies as much in the relentless poetic flow of its prose as in the brutally frank psychological characterization of its heroine (and a few other characters!), may be forever out of the reach of other media, and might best be left to pursue its own life on paper.

I also agree that Ms. Huppert's portrayal is cold, but I've always seen Emma as being that way. After all--she's nuts. Crazy people are seldom full of human warmth. Emma Bovary is among the select handful of fictional characters neurotic enough to have given their names to a pathological condition (in this case, bovarism).

It's always possible to admire a movie for its visual beauty, and this one wins hands-down in that category.

But if you want the full impact of the wretched, wrenching story--you have to go back to the book. I applaud Mr. Chabrol for trying, even if he didn't succeed, to make a perhaps impossible adaptation.