The original Milly was a tribute to Henry James' niece Minny, who died of tuberculosis.
The story was moved up in time from 1902 to 1910, in part at the behest of costume designer Sandy Powell. Fashion evolved significantly between those eight years, and Powell felt that the 1910 silhouette would help set this movie apart from the movies made by Merchant-Ivory (which are often set in the 1900s). Powell's efforts and subsequent unique designs earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design, but like most other nominated movies in 1997, lost to Titanic (1997).
Based on a novel by Henry James (1902) with the same name, in 1998, it ranked twenty-sixth on the list of the one hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century by the Modern Library.
Some of the distinctive pleated gowns worn in the Venice scenes are designed to look like gowns produced by the Italian designer Fortuny. Fortuny pleated gowns were popular amongst wealthy European women in the early 1910s for their simplicity, form-fitting design and Greco-Roman influences. The gowns in this movie, however, were created by contemporary husband and wife team Charles and Patricia Lester, who create modern gowns with a similar pleat.
The paintings Milly Theale (Alison Elliott) sees in the gallery with Merton Densher (Linus Roache) and Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) are Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" (1907), and Klimt's "Danae" (1907).