Returning behind the camera following last year’s Adore, the BAFTA-nominated Anne Fontaine is back with another adaptation, this time setting her sights on Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel, Gemma Bovery, first serialised in The Guardian.
The film is set to be released in France this September, and the dialogue-free first teaser trailer and posters have been launched, along with a trio of stills.
Courtesy of Amazon, here’s the synopsis for the original novel.
Gemma is the bored, pretty second wife of Charlie Bovery, the reluctant stepmother of his children and the bête-noire of his ex-wife. Gemma’s sudden windfall and distaste for London take them across the Channel to Normandy, where the charms of French country living soon wear off.
Is it a coincidence that Gemma Bovery has a name rather like Flaubert’s notorious heroine? Is it by chance that, like Madame Bovary, Gemma is bored, adulterous, and a bad credit risk? Is she inevitably doomed? These questions consume Gemma’s neighbour, the intellectual baker, Joubert. Denying voyeurism, but nevertheless noting every change in the fit of her jeans, every addition to Gemma’s wardrobe, her love-bites and lovers, Joubert, with the help of the heroine’s diaries, follows her path towards ruin. Adultery and its consequences. Disappointment and deception. The English in France. Fat and slim. Then and now.
Gemma Arterton stars as the eponymous Gemma Bovery, with Fabrice Luchini opposite as her neighbour, renamed Martin for the film and seen below talking over the trailer, and Jason Flemyng completing the cast as Arterton’s on-screen husband, Charlie Bovery.
Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel) directs from a script she co-wrote with Pascal Bonitzer (Petites coupures), with the director reuniting with producer Philippe Carcassone (Coco Before Chanel, Adore).
Gemma Bovery will be released in France on September 10th. No word yet on a UK or US release date, but here’s to hoping it will arrive on our shores before the year is out.
