Gemma Bovery review: Gemma Arterton sets pulses racing, but she's reduced to a French fancy

Director: Anne Fontaine; Screenwriters: Anne Fontaine, Pascal Bonitzer; Starring: Fabrice Luchini, Gemma Arterton, Jason Flemyng, Niels Schneider; Running time: 99 mins; Certificate: 15

Gemma Arterton sets pulses racing in rural France as a modern, much fluffier version of Gustave Flaubert's 19th-century heroine Madame Bovary, but in essence, she is merely replaying her part in 2010's similarly-themed comedy drama Tamara Drewe; that is to say, an object of lust rather than a fully fleshed-out human being.

Both films are based on graphic novels by Posy Simmonds which started life as cartoon strips for The Guardian (the former being a reworking of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd). In this case, Flaubert's fallen woman, Gemma, is a Londoner who moves to Normandy with her furniture restorer husband (Jason Flemyng) to live the bucolic life that many a tube-riding, broadsheet-reader fantasises about. Arterton is, as usual, bursting with charm, although the focus is very much on the straining seams of her dresses.

That's because we're seeing her through the eyes of a lovesick neighbour, married middle-aged bread-maker Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), who is no Paul Hollywood but a comically hangdog type who all but drools at the sight of this fresh, imported eye candy. Co-writer/director Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel) lets her camera linger on every curve of Arterton's body and uses soft lighting to corny effect, playing the situation for gentle laughs - and even less of the satirical edge that Stephen Frears at least tried to bring to Tamara Drewe.

Arterton strives to bring some depth to the character. She's seen mourning her life choices, either in the quest for excitement or the opposite of that (escaping to the country often proves to be the first worst move in Simmonds's portrayal of the middle-classes). Gemma's second-worst decision is seducing pouty 20-something Herve (Niels Schneider) while hubbie is away on business. The problem is compounded by Martin, who turns stalker and tracks her every wrong move.

Co-writer/director Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel) lets her camera linger on every curve of Arterton's body and uses soft lighting to corny effect, playing the situation for gentle laughs - and even less of the satirical edge that Stephen Frears at least tried to bring to Tamara Drewe.

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This doesn't qualify as a love triangle because it's painfully clear that, even before Herve shows up, Gemma has no romantic interest in Martin - and deep down, he knows it. There's also no menace, because Martin is otherwise decent. The story rests on a single quirky contrivance; his panic at the notion that Gemma is on course to meet the ill fate of her literary namesake. A running joke that steadily gets more grating sees Martin throw a hissy fit at her every mention of buying rat poison, because it contains arsenic - an in-joke for litterateurs.

Luchini, who is essentially given the task of playing an old perv, manages to draw some sympathy as a tragic figure in his own right, having moved back to Normandy (where Flaubert's original story is set) hoping to feel settled and instead, is restless. Later on, events rock everybody's foundations, but the pathos doesn't resonate after so much prettily-lit frippery and Luchini's deadpan expressions, which are often the punch-line to fleshy close-ups of Arterton. Fontaine even succumbs to having her knead dough under his sweaty supervision - with results that are more squirm than mirth-inducing. Only men of a certain age are likely to get a rise out of this.