Madame Bovary (1949) on Netflix
Emma Bovary, the young wife of a doctor in Normandy, wants the romance she pictured, not the quiet provincial life she has. Her lavish spending on the house brings mounting debt.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.0/103,386 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Accused of writing a shocking and immoral novel, Gustave Flaubert answers a Paris courtroom by telling the story of its heroine himself. Emma is twenty, lonely, and given to imagining a perfect life. Charles Bovary, a doctor, wins her love, and after the wedding the couple settle into a little house in Normandy that she redecorates at great expense. Emma tells Charles she hopes for a baby boy, one not held to the era's repressive norms for women; the baby is a girl, Berthe, and the child's upbringing falls to a nanny. Unhappy, she grows close to Leon Dupuis, whose mother pushes him toward Paris and law school.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Madame Bovary (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer set Lana Turner to star in Madame Bovary, but pregnancy forced her to withdraw and Jennifer Jones stepped into the title role of Emma Bovary.
- Flaubert's story of a frivolous, adulterous wife raised censorship issues with the Motion Picture Production Code, so the film was structured around the author's own obscenity trial to placate the censors.
