sweden, 1938, swedishI suppose it’s nice to know that they couldn’t be bothered to hire an actual native English speaker to play one any more than American films typically do for foreign languages here.
GUSTAF MOLANDER
Dollar
This is a strange one. Strange in the sense that it doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be. It starts out as an honestly pretty brutal “screwball” style comedy about three couples, all of whom are married to the wrong person in the group. Then it transitions to being about one of the wives in particular having a nervous breakdown. Then it transitions to being about an American cousin who is in love with a country doctor. Finally to an attempt at some kind of universal statement about love.
None of those are necessarily bad films, but the tonal shifts were pretty jarring. I enjoyed the first one the most, and it was especially fun to see Ingrid Bergman in the role of the poison tongued scorned wife in love with her brother-in-law. The sudden appearance of the doctor and the rich American who loves him was my least favorite plot point.
Sandwiched in between was the nervous breakdown, caused by the aforementioned love hexagon. It “resolves” the situation, but in the most milquetoast way possible. Everyone turns out to actually really love their own spouse, not the other member of the group they heretofore have pledged themselves to. It’s a cop out that completely invalidates most of the early part of the film. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t, like, get it man.
Overall I don’t have that much else to say. The beauty of the Eclipse line is that you get to watch films like this. Films that aren’t necessarily remembered for their greatness, but rather help fill in the gaps in an overall understanding of something about film history. In this case about the early career of Ingrid Bergman. In that role this was perfect.