Product Details

• Actors: O'Connor, Bonneville, Wise, Dancy
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: BBC Warner
• VHS Release Date: July 19, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004WG9A
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,240 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Swiftly following the BBC's saga of a country doctor's daughter, Wives and Daughters (1999), comes their tale of a country doctor's wife. Madame Bovary is adapted from the great French novel by Gustave Flaubert and recounts the story of a young woman who longs for a more passionate life than her provincial world can ever accommodate. Unwilling to accept the confines of her marriage to the steady and conventional Charles (Hugh Bonneville), Emma Bovary (Frances O'Connor) embarks on self-deluding affairs that lead to tragedy. As selfishly amoral as Emma Bovary is, and even though her motivation is sometimes unfathomable in this version, we do feel for her plight and the story develops with cumulative power--though a ridiculous sex scene against a tree doesn't help. This is at least the 10th screen adaptation, the 1949 Hollywood take and the 1991 French version by Claude Chabrol being the most notable. The story is a predecessor of Jules et Jim (1962) and Betty Blue (1986) and inspired David Lean's great film Ryan's Daughter (1970). This version has a dark visual beauty and a powerful central performance by Frances O'Connor, but a brisker pace and sharper psychological insight might have transformed a polished entertainment into a television classic. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bovary Revisited, February 16, 2001

By	Randy Buck (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The second BBC stab at Flaubert's novel in recent memory, successful primarily for the delicately shaded performance of Frances O'Connor (who did similarly elegant work in the recent feature of MANSFIELD PARK). Handsome enough physical production, good supporting cast, but many unnecessary additions in character and plot points from the screenwriter, and considerably more English than French in feel (the estimable Eileen Atkins, in particular, makes the elder Madame Bovary seem like a refugee from E.F. Benson). Closer in spirit to the novel than the Chabrol film, with a hopelessly pragmatic Emma in Isabelle Huppert; still eclipsed by the MGM version, where Jennifer Jones' neurotic beauty seems very close to the ideal realization of the book's elusive anti-heroine. Enjoyable enough, but not on a par with the BBC's finest adaptations.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BBC's Version of Madame Bovary..., December 18, 2004

By	Charlotte Drobnicki "jolliedd" (NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Madame Bovary [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This controversial novel by Gustave Flaubert was beautifully portrayed in this authentic to the period film. All of the actors were riveting. Frances O'Connor was a perfect Emma, and Greg Wise shined as Rodolphe Boulanger. It is a shame though, when a French provincial woman suffers the consequences of debouchery and excess. Beware of the nudity.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Didn't quite catch my attention......, April 25, 2006

By	Witch in the Hollow Hill (In a different century.....) - See all my reviews

I didn't really enjoy this adaption. O'Connor just didn't fit the bill to play Emma. I never got any sense of passion or tension in her, she played it too flat. And a little over the top in some places. But never right on. It was only ok, nothing miraculous.

The whole movie just felt "wrong". I won't be watching it again.