'Gemma Bovery': Son of Flaubert

AS ITS CUTESY title suggests, "Gemma Bovery" is a glib, smirking take on Flaubert's tragic novel.

Adapted from a graphic novel, it's about a married woman named Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton) who moves to France and becomes the obsession of the local baker (Fabrice Luchini), a Flaubert fanatic who sees Gemma's life playing out in the doomed pattern of Emma Bovary.

Had the baker been played by Fred MacMurray, we might have called this "Son of Flaubert."

I apologize for that joke, but I must warn you it's at least as funny as anything you encounter in "Gemma," whose comic-strip concept feels stretched thin in movie form.

Oh, well, the scenery is very nice. It's shot in the rustic estates of Normandy (the movie is a mix of French and English), where Flaubert wrote his book, and where Gemma and husband Charles (Jason Flemyng) move in order to advance his career as a restorer of valuable antiquities.

She's soon bored, and begins to embark upon affairs, just like Madame Bovary. Watching all of this intently is the bread baker, who covets the curvy Gemma, and recasts (in his own mind) his gawking obsession as a paternal concern for her well being, which he sees threatened by uncanny parallels to the famous book.

In part because he meddles, and the more he does the more uncanny the parallels become.

This is meant to be funny but rarely is, and the rigidly preordained outcomes of this meta-movie constrain both plot and character.

Arterton is lovely, certainly believable as a woman who could drive men to distraction, but there's isn't much to her character as written.

It makes for a shallow viewing experience, and the darkly comic laughs at Gemma's expense during the movie's third act actually feel a little creepy.

We cannot blame chauvinism, or men. The movie is directed by Anne Fontaine, and the graphic novel is by Posy Simmonds.

They are sole authors of the scene in which the half-naked Arterton is splayed on a table, writhing with a lusty neighbor.

Watching the camera drool over Arterton in this scene and others, a French word comes to mind.

"Entourage."