In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire marries a dull country doctor. To escape boredom, she throws herself into love affairs with a suave local landowner and a law student, and runs up ruinous debts.

In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire (Emma Rouault) marries a dull country doctor (Charles Bovary). To escape boredom, she throws herself into love affairs with a suave local landowner (Rodolphe Boulanger) and a law student (Leon Dupuis), and runs up ruinous debts. This film version closely follows Flaubert's novel and includes most of the famous scenes, such as the wedding, the ball, the agricultural fair, the operation on the clubfoot, and the opera in Rouen.—English Showalter <[email protected]>

In the nineteenth century, the widower countryside Doctor Charles Bovary meets Emma Rouault, the spirited daughter Mr. Rouault that is his patient and farmer, and sooner they get married to each other. They move to Tostes and sooner Emma feels bored with the simple lifestyle of her husband. Charles moves to Yonville to please his wife and she feels astonished with the ball of the Marquee. During an agricultural fair, Madame Bovary meets the womanizer Rodolphe Boulanger that seduces her and they have a love affair. When her naive husband falls in disgrace after an unsuccessful surgery of the clubfoot Hippolyte, Emma despises him. She meets Boulanger with more frequency and spends a large amount using the credit with the Merchant Lheureux expecting to leave Charles and travel with Boulanger to Rouen. However, her lover sends a letter to her ending their affair and travels alone. Emma gets ill and during her recovery, she travels with her husband to see an opera in Rouen, where she meets the young Leon Dupuis that becomes her lover. When her debts with the trader Lheureux reaches eight thousand francs, Emma tries unsuccessfully to get a loan to avoid the execution of the pledge. Hopeless, she takes a dramatic ultimate decision.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil