7/10
It has Bjornstrand and Dahlbeck, and that's enough for me
31 March 2020
This is not one of the great Bergman comedies, not comparable to Smiles of a Summer's Night, Secrets of Women or The Devil's Eye, but it has its pleasures. Chief among them is the partnership of Gunnar Bjornstrand and Eva Dahlbeck; you might call them the Swedish version of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (or Cary Grant and Hepburn in Philadelphia Story). He's staid and a little timorous, she's volatile and humorous, with great comic timing. They're beautifully photographed and posed within the frame. I'm ready to forget the incongruous scenes that seem thrown in on a whim--what is that fight between the two women in the bar all about ? it comes out of nowhere.

Harriet Andersson probably wanted to get the sexpot image out of people's minds when she accepted the part, but Nix is a confusing character: tomboy and developed woman in the same body. Her acting shows the unease she must have felt about the character. Ake Gronberg as the bearish Carl-Adam has some funny lines but his part is fairly tiresome in the end. Minor Bergman except for the fabulous main couple.
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