‘Gemma Bovery' falls flat

This bilingual dramedy is a reimagining of Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 love-hate classic “Madame Bovary,” brought up to date in the present and repopulated with characters moved to Normandy from London.

If that takes it too far away from Flaubert, it’s actually based on English author Posy Simmonds’ 1999 “Gemma Bovery,” which reworked the originals into an Anglo-French graphic novel.

Fabrice Luchini plays Martin Joubert, whose bakery in a rural village connects him with his new neighbors, the Boverys - Gemma Arterton (“Quantum of Solace”) and her husband, Charles (a grouchy Jason Flemyng) - married artists relocated from England.

Martin, it turns out, is a fan of Flaubert. Although they’re British, the Bovarys so resemble Flaubert’s characters that Martin worries they will re-enact the tragic novel.

Gemma not only possesses magnifique looks, but appears to be, like Flaubert’s anti-heroine, bored in her marriage, debt-plagued and adulterous.

When Gemma considers buying arsenic to solve her mouse problem, Martin panics: After all, that’s how Emma Bovary met her end.

But Gemma ignites Martin’s “jubilation.”

Martin developes a crush he timidly hides from his alpha female wife. Through Gemma’s stay he keeps a watchful eye on her, hoping for a chance to move closer. Instead he jealously sees her develop liaisons with other male admirers.

While Martin is smitten with Gemma he never becomes her lover; that would be Herve (Niels Schneider), a gorgeous trust-fund kid.

Luchini, a sort of Gallic Steve Buscemi, is great at this sort of voyeuristic milquetoast role.

The beguiling Arterton, meanwhile, fills every scene with Venus de Milo grace. Gemma floats around in a cloud of wavy red hair like Botticelli’s Venus with slightly more clothing.

Martin’s frustration as Gemma moves dangerously to the same disastrous end as Flaubert’s character is aptly observed and the provincial locations are magnetically attractive.

There’s even a pinch of the erotic passion that had Flaubert arrested and tried for obscenity when his novel appeared.

If the film moved along quicker and found a better mix of irony and sadness, it would have been a charming treat.

But all the ingredients fail to make a tasty pain au chocolat.