Promises that are not delivered

FOR most of us, life is a series of unremarkable events punctuated by moments of joyful clarity and littered along the way with disappointments big and small. The pragmatists cope as best they can, while others escape the banal by imagining that life has much more in store for them than it actually does.

Emma Bovary, the deeply flawed protagonist in Gustave Flaubert's 1856 novel Madame Bovary, has made the leap from page to silver screen on previous occasions. The latest version, directed by Sophie Barthes, features porcelain-skinned Mia Wasikowska in the title role, bathed in soft natural light and swathed in rich silk dresses, in stark contrast to everyone around her.

Barthes has trimmed some of the book's characters from the film but depicts Emma's world in a style that is faithful to Flaubert's classic, which is considered a seminal work of literary realism. Flaubert was devoted to the search for le mot juste (the right word), a condition of unyielding perfectionism that the filmmakers could not hope to match. There's no suspense to speak of because Emma's tragic fate is revealed in the opening scene and her story is then told in flashback.