Smiles of a Summer Night: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] Reviews

Eight unhappy adults involved in particularly unsatisfying personal relationships enter into a sexual roundelay as only Ingmar Bergman could script and stage it in the mesmerizingly beautiful, wonderfully funny, and oddly touching Smiles of a Summer Night. An adult comedy that delves deeply into the whims and follies of devotion, romance, and sexual longing was rare even in the 1950s (it’s practically unheard of today), and Smiles of a Summer Night only grows in sophisticated elegance and class as the years pass. Bergman’s first international success could not be more timeless; no wonder a musical theater genius like Stephen Sondheim could watch this masterpiece and see its enchanting musical possibilities which he and librettist Hugh Wheeler exploited to the max in A Little Night Music. 

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