'Gemma Bovery' teases out a baker's fantasy life with his neighbor

<b>Mini-review: 'Gemma Bovery'</b>

I think I have this straight: Anne Fontaine's sleek-looking "Gemma Bovery" is narrated by a middle-aged French baker named Martin (Fabrice Luchini) who steals the diary of his alluring neighbor Gemma (Gemma Arterton), then launches into voiced-over flashbacks from the diary merged with his own flashbacks, then Gemma and one of her lovers experience their own revealing flashbacks inside Martin's flashbacks.

Maybe I don't have it so straight.

Anyway, "Gemma Bovery" works like a serious, literary redo of Blake Edwards' "10," in which a slack-jawed, wide-eyed Martin not-so-slyly ogles his sensual British neighbor Gemma Bovery, imagining her life is imitating that of her adulterous literary namesake from Gustave Flaubert's novel "Madame Bovery."

But then, she seems to be doing just that.

Arterton, who played the ill-fated Strawberry Fields in the 007 adventure "Quantum of Solace," strikes a perfect balance of unintentional eroticism and natural beauty as the title character.

Luchini, almost letting his tongue loll out in Arterton's presence, appears to be suppressing a deep desire to play his baker for laughs. Just like Dudley Moore did in "10"?

Fontaine, who started out with dark psychological dramas, might have considered making "Gemma Bovery" a comedy. Its obtuse narrative structure is close to one already.

<b>"Gemma Bovery" opens at the Music Box Theatre, Chicago. Rated R for language, nudity. sexual situations. 100 minutes. In French and English with subtitles. ★ ★ </b>