Madame Bovary

Released Aug 25, 1949

1 hr. 55 min.

Romance

List

Reviews

70%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Based on the French literary classic, this drama presents author Gustave Flaubert (James Mason) narrating his tale of infidelity and narcissism. After marrying small-town doctor Charles Bovary (Van Heflin), Emma (Jennifer Jones) becomes tired of her limited social status and begins to have affairs, first with the young Leon Dupuis (Christopher Kent) and later with the wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan). Eventually, however, her self-involved behavior catches up with her.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered Jan 01

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Apple TV

Rent Madame Bovary on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Matthew D

Madame Bovary (1949) is a real snooze fest with mundane narration from James Mason that takes us from scene to scene with a strange framing device of a morality trial. Jennifer Jones is pretty and charming as Madame Bovary, but this film is filled with shallow characters, obnoxious noise, double talk, and the slowest pacing imaginable. I nearly actually fell asleep.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/16/24

Full Review

Audience Member

Compelling and gripping tale of Flaubert's classic Madame Bovary. Impressively done and finely acted in every sense, with Jennifer Jones being a standout in her role as Madame Bovary. Except for the obviously Hollywood sets at the beginning of the movie, this film is one of MGM's best. The theme that Catholic institutions in France deprived young women of their natural adolescent imaginations and instead made them believe in "storybook" lives -- came through loudly and clearly through the life of Madame Bovary -- who was an addict to her childhood storybooks and all the prince charmings they held. In the end, her books always told her that they lived happily ever after -- so everything she did was in pursuit of this happiness she saw in those childhood storybooks while in Catholic school...the only books, besides religious works, the girls were allowed to read. Flaubert did not apologize for Madame Bovary and her excesses; he was simply stating the facts. The courts found him innocent. This movie is a classic in every sense of the word.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The best movie score ever composed!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

Full Review

Audience Member

For starters, I think it’s worth mentioning that the framing sequence in this version of Madame Bovary is totally pointless. It starts you off already knowing where the story is going to head, because they explain some of those details in the court trial of Gustave Flaubert. And if the primary thrust of his testimony was about Madame Bovary’s motives, then there should be much more time spent on the early parts of the story where they establish the foundation for Emma’s choices. Instead he tells the entire story from start to finish, which would possibly reinforce what the prosecution was saying. There would be no value for Flaubert to go past the handful of early scenes that establish Emma’s character. It’s as if the film-makers were concerned that a modern audience could be offended by the choices that Emma makes in the movie, so they decided to include this framing sequence to soften the blow on the viewers and to defend the movie they were making. The only positive I could find out of that opening scene was that it gave us James Mason as a narrator, and he has a superb voice for that kind of thing. It’s one time I would have been OK with more voiceover. I have to commend the entire cast of Madame Bovary. I thought they all did wonderful work that made the emotions of this story more impactful. Jennifer Jones is lovely, and they created some amazing costumes to accentuate her beauty. You can see why men would be drawn to her. Van Heflin is the emotional core of the film, or at least he was for me but I’ll come back to that. The point is he has several powerful scenes and he infuses them with the right emotion, but without being big and overly dramatic. One of my favorite French actors Louis Jourdan is also in the film, and I wish he could have been in it more. I’m just a sucker for Jourdan, and any time I see him I want to go and watch Octopussy again immediately. A lot of the drama in Madame Bovary was lost on me. I struggled in a big way dealing with this movie, and for me Flaubert utterly failed in his attempt to portray Emma as a sympathetic character. I hated her for the constant lies, manipulation, and cheating. I have never done well with characters who behave like spoiled children because life doesn’t live up to their expectations. We all deal with disappointment in life, and even her husband Charles was disappointed with the trajectory of his life because of the choices he made. I can connect with any character with big dreams that weren’t met, but not when she responds to that by shutting off communication, seeking out shallow ways of filling the void, and utterly abandoning her husband and child. Am I supposed to care that she’s distraught after her lovers don’t live up to her expectations? It’s a story that didn’t click for me, and I found myself annoyed and feeling terrible for poor Charles the whole time. Ranking on my Flickchart Loses to The Phantom of the Opera Loses to Ju Dou Wins against The Angry Birds Movie Wins against Trolls Loses to Gladiator Wins against Battle of the Sexes Wins against Eyes Wide Shut Wins against Village of the Damned Wins against Creepshow Wins against Amour Loses to Babel Madame Bovary ranked 1228 out of 1574

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

06/13/18

Full Review

Audience Member

The fairy-tale rise and sudden fall of a woman who needed to live as the heroine of a novel. A shame she could never outgrow those teenage aspirations.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

Full Review

robbie v

Pretty good adaptation of the novel.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Vincente Minnelli

Director

Jennifer Jones

Emma Bovary

Van Heflin

Charles Bovary

Louis Jourdan

Rodolphe Boulanger

James Mason

Gustave Flaubert

Christopher Kent

Leon Dupuis

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

View more photos

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Director Vincente Minnelli’s superb staging of the ballroom sequence is a movie-seeing must.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 9, 2024

Full Review

Michael E. Grost

Classic Film and Television

Grim melodrama, about the horrors of debt and living beyond your means.

Aug 8, 2008

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

One of Minnelli's most personal works, a film that embodies the glossy look of MGM and yet offers subversive interpretation of the classic novel, its modern heroine and the notion of romantic love.

Rated: A-

Jul 2, 2007

Full Review

Boo Allen

Denton Record-Chronicle

Rated: 4/5

Jan 12, 2007

Full Review

Read all reviews

Synopsis

Based on the French literary classic, this drama presents author Gustave Flaubert (James Mason) narrating his tale of infidelity and narcissism. After marrying small-town doctor Charles Bovary (Van Heflin), Emma (Jennifer Jones) becomes tired of her limited social status and begins to have affairs, first with the young Leon Dupuis (Christopher Kent) and later with the wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan). Eventually, however, her self-involved behavior catches up with her.

Director: Vincente Minnelli
Screenwriter: Robert Ardrey
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Genre: Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 25, 1949, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2009

Most Popular at Home Now