While Valerie and Martin lie in bed arguing about the banality of Madame Bovary, Valerie is reading a biography of François Mauriac. Mauriac's most famous novel Thérèse Desqueyroux also deals with a bored, unhappy woman in the back province, but this one attempts to poison her husband with arsenic.
Gemma Arterton learned to speak French for the film with the help of her French boyfriend Franklin Ohannessian, who also worked on the production. She didn't speak a word of French when she was cast in the film.
Gemma Arterton stated that Gemma Bovery is the character who is more close to how she is in real life that she ever played.
According to director Anne Fontaine, Isabelle Huppert convinced her to consider Gemma Arterton for the lead role. Fontaine previously rejected Arterton because she had starred in another film adaptation of a Posy Simmonds graphic novel, O Retorno de Tamara (2010).
In the scene of Hervé de Bressigny holding a porcelain sculpture, it is a copy of Cupid statue, the god of love, first made in 18th century, and holds the title "L'Amour Menaçant" which means 'Love threatens'