Miss Julie (1951) review

The title young lady, reared by a suicide-happy Father and man-hating fire-starting Mother (and therefore understandably unsound) contemplates running away with her valet and starting her life over again - there are dark underpinnings in there about having relationships outside your social class (Strindberg doesn't think it'll work), sexual hysteria and madness in general. Sjöberg takes liberties with the source text, interrupting flow to 'explain' the psyches of the characters using various cinematic devices, and consciously prevents the film from being deemed 'too stagy,' but the Strindberg material is too strong to totally negated by the sometimes heated presentation. Accusations of misogyny may or may not be warranted, although the portrait of the two men (Julie's father and Jean the Lover) doesn't exactly make them look like positive, warm figures.