A literary-minded baker (Fabrice Luchini) suspects his beautiful new neighbor is living a life a bit like Emma Bovary’s. That her name is “Gemma Bovery” seems like a joke of fate, and that she’s played by actress Gemma Arterton makes the film a fun house of possibility.
A sly and frequently comical spoof on “Madame Bovary” based on a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds, “Gemma Bovery” intersects with, and diverges from, the source material in witty ways. At first the main point of dramatic tension seems to be the lustful, hapless projections of the baker-narrator, not Gemma’s boredom with her husband (Jason Flemying) and an affair with a local rake (Niels Schneider). Later Ms. Bovery faces obstacles to her happiness, but they’re not exactly what you’d guess.
Laden with witty ironies, the film by Anne Fontaine suggests men may not play exactly the roles they think they do in women’s lives.