Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary (1949) is MGM's adaptation of Flaubert's novel, directed by Vincente Minnelli — watch it online on iFILM. Jennifer Jones plays Emma Bovary, a country doctor's wife raised on sentimental romances who expects her life to resemble them: grand passions, elegant company, men who exist mainly in books.

Charles Bovary loves her genuinely, and that is precisely the problem. Emma takes a lover — Rodolphe, played by Louis Jourdan — then another, then spends money she doesn't have. Van Heflin brings a heartbreaking obliviousness to Charles. James Mason appears as Flaubert himself, framing Emma's story as the writer's criminal trial — an unusual structural choice that keeps the whole thing from reading as a simple moral fable.

Minnelli is not interested in condemning Emma. He's more curious about what happens when a person's imagination will never be matched by reality. Stream Madame Bovary (1949) on iFILM.