Set in Normandy in the 1850s, the film follows the story of Emma Bovary, an attractive young woman full of romantic notions, whose marriage to an unexciting country doctor leads her to adulterous affairs and tragedy.

Following an aristocratic ball she is more dissatisfied than ever and her husband, noticing this, moves to a larger town with potentially greater diversions, where he is befriended by the apothecary.

After four years, she demands that they run away together and, after he agrees, buys travelling clothes and luggage on credit; instead he writes her a farewell letter and leaves town.

To pay the cost of the coach fares, the hotel room, smart clothes to go to town and gifts to Léon, together with extravagant furnishings, she runs up debts with the conniving shopkeeper Lheureux.

He particularly praised the performance of Isabelle Huppert: "...Chabrol was quite right to find Emma Bovary within her.... Who else could do so little and yet project such a burning need - such a cry for deliverance from the bondage of self?"

[1] Vincent Canby of the New York Times also gave a generally positive review and concluded that "Mr. Chabrol errs on the side of understatement.