Chez Maupassant La Parure (2007– ) Online

Claude Chabrol transferred "Madame Bovary " to the screen in the nineties;so it was only natural he chose "La Parure " for his contribution to the "Chez Maupassant" collection;this short story is "Madame Bovary" in miniature.

Mathilde Loisel dreams her life away:she wanted to be a socialite and she wound up married to a minor public official ;like in Flaubert's masterpiece ,the ball is the heroine's peak ,and the turning point of the story.

Cécile De France is well cast as Mathilde,a spoiled child ,whose husband (well played by Chabrol's son) enjoys a good " Pot Au Feu" (boiled beef with vegetables) ,a dish not refined enough for his wife .A husband so generous and so nice he gives up on his dream of a new shotgun and thus allows his wife to buy a new dress for the ministry ball ,where,just for one night,she becomes the queen of elegance;but she loses her friend's diamond river,and to replace the jewel,she and her faithful husband will spend ten years in poverty,scrubbing other people's floor.Mathilde 's metamorphosis is stunning ,from a pretty wife to a slovenly uncouth working -class woman with a prematurely aged face.

When I read the short story a long long long time ago,the last sentence was a totally unexpected end ;it still is.