Faithless

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

The movie may be the meditation of an old man, but rarely has a supreme artist's twilight been so richly illuminating. Faithless makes other films on the same subject seem clueless.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

82-year-old Ingmar Bergman takes one of the most painful, shameful episodes of his own life and, writing for director Liv Ullmann, transmutes it into magical, brilliant artistry.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A domestic tragedy of lacerating vision.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Complex, challenging and richly rewarding, it glows with the kind of wrenchingly selfless portrayals that are the hallmark of the Bergman classics.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A stunning drama that's distinguished by a magnificent performance; the most powerful scenes are those that play, as recollection or confession, on Lena Endre's lovely face.

Film.com Peter Brunette

It makes us realize, suddenly, and with immense regret, what the rest of contemporary cinema so sorely lacks.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

What's best about Faithless is its honesty, its lack of desire to ingratiate itself with the audience.

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

The sometimes fatiguing slow flow in hour one is worth the labor because the power in this 2-hour triumph reveals itself gradually.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Ullmann's film is an achievement of heart and consequence, as full of integrity as Bergman, yet demonstrating more mercy.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Intriguing in the way it dances in and out of the shadow of Bergman's autobiography.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Ullmann has honed a too-long and sometimes relentless film that delves into the selfishness of passion but also captures the elusiveness and unpredictability of love.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

This attenuated two-and-a-half-hour reflection on marriage, adultery, parenthood and the casualties of sexual warfare unfolds like a brooding autobiographical epilogue to Mr. Bergman's much stormier 1973 masterpiece, "Scenes From a Marriage."

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Held together by the intensity of its focus.

Variety David Stratton

Liv Ullmann, directing her second Bergman screenplay (after 1997’s “Private Confessions”), extracts every nuance from the tantalizing material.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

What she (Ullmann) does achieve is a couple of scenes of lacerating power.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Bergman's collaboration with Ullmann began when he directed her in "Persona" (1966). Here, with the roles nearly reversed, she shows herself as great an interpreter behind the camera.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A mesmerizing deconstruction of the brute nature of love.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Faithless, filmed mostly during Sweden's endless winter, will chill you to the bone.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Much of the film is so wrenching there's no time for idle thoughts.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

An intense, claustrophobic drama of love and infidelity.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Hits so hard because it feels so real.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Much of what Faithless contains happens off-screen, told and retold as stories within stories, and so the actors typically work like oxen.

Chicago Reader Ronnie Scheib

Hence the fascination of Faithless: the tension between the script's dour puritanism--the craving of suffering, the wallowing in abstract guilt--and the earthy plenitude and innate sensuality of Ullmann's austere compositions.

Slate David Edelstein

Faithless is almost entirely insight-free. Bergman gives no indication that he understands the link between his alter ego's "retroactive jealousy" and compulsive womanizing.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Brilliantly acted and lugubriously paced, Liv Ullmann's fourth feature as director — the second written by her mentor, Ingmar Bergman — will no doubt be manna to those who miss the brilliant acting and lugubrious pace that characterized Bergman's late-period films.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Bergman is finally getting around to asking himself questions he now realizes he should have asked long ago is not sufficient enough premise for a movie. The answers may be news to Bergman, but the rest of us might just want to opt for divorce.