I Am Not Madame Bovary

Synopsis

The main protagonist, Li Xuelian, is a woman who divorces her husband in order to side-step Chinese law, which states that married couples can only own one property. In order to purchase another property, Li and her husband concoct a plan to divorce so that they can buy a second property. However, in the process of this, her now ex-husband marries another woman and denies ever agreeing to such a deal with Li. To further outrage and distance himself, he accuses Li of sleeping with other men (prostitution/being Madame Bovary). Li, outraged by this, goes to the local authorities to nullify the divorce so that she may legitimately divorce her husband. Authorities are puzzled by this as Li is already divorced. Li explains her principled approach, first to the local police that she and her husband agreed to divorce under the guise of buying property, but now she wishes to undertake a legitimate divorce. Li crusades for her cause, escalating her issue through each bureaucratic step in the system, from the local police, to local judiciary, to local magistrate, then to the Provincial authorities.

During Li's journey, she tries to hire her friends as hitmen to kill her ex-husband, is accused by her ex-husband of fooling around with other men, is arrested and sent to re-education camps, falsely led into an intimate relationship with a man in an effort by local authorities of ceasing her crusade, goes all the way to Beijing to protest her principled stance on nullifying her divorce. During her persistent crusade, her ex-husband dies, leading Li to lament over her, now, inability to seek retribution for her ex-husband's illicit affair and branding her a prostitute.

The movie concludes with Li settling alone in Beijing, running a noodle restaurant where she encounters one of the local officials who impeded her during her early crusade. She recounts her tale with the official (who was fired as a result of her crusade) and reveals that she initially divorced not to buy property, but so they could have two children. Li was pregnant at the time of the divorce and a divorce would mean she and her ex could "re"-marry and have another child. However, during her divorce and crusade, she had a miscarriage and lost the baby. The movie concludes with Li accepting her fate and life for what it is and lets go of her angst and hate.

Cast

Fan Bingbing as Li Xuelian, a village woman

Da Peng as Wang Gongdao, the judge

Yin Yuanzhang as Gu Daxing

Feng Enhe as retired Chief Justice

Liu Xin as Justice Xun

Zhao Yi as Police Chief

Zhao Lixin as County Chief Shi Weimin

Jiang Yongbo as Mayor Cai

Zhang Yi as Jia Congming

Liu Hua as Lao Hu

Li Zonghan as Qin Yuhe

Guo Tao as Zhao Datou, Xuelian's classmate

Huang Jianxin as Governor Chu

Gao Ming as leader

Yu Hewei as Zheng Zhong

Zhang Jiayi as the magistrate

Tian Xiaojie as Secretary of Mayor

Li Chen as Police officer

Hu Ming as Hospital driver

Fan Wei as Guo Nong, orchard owner

Feng Xiaogang (uncredited) as narrator

Production

I Am Not Madame Bovary is Feng Xiaogang, Liu Zhenyun and Fan Bingbing's second collaboration, twelve years after their first, Cell Phone.

On 14 March 2016, a trailer was released via the film's producers.

Release

The film was released theatrically on 18 November 2016.

Box office

The film has grossed CN¥483.2 million in China. It has grossed US$70 million worldwide.

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 49 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "I Am Not Madame Bovary's sly social commentary and well-constructed story anchor director Feng Xiaogang's visually experimental approach." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".