A movie based on a graphic novel based on a book, Gemma Bovery accomplishes shockingly little by recontextualizing Flaubert's classic. It shrouds itself in fashionable layers of distance, winking so much it seems to have developed a tic, but if all of this updating and rethinking is meant to comment ironically on the life of Flaubert's heroine, the actual effect is stultifying, like the story has been packed in bubble wrap. Every now and then Gemma Arterton takes her shirt off and the movie makes a satisfying "pop," but overall it inspires a profound, almost nihilistic indifference. by Alison Hallett