Dreams

Ingmar Bergman’s slow-build drama focuses on two women. Susanne owns a successful modeling agency but yearns for her former lover, a married man. Younger Doris models for Susanne, has split with her fiancé, and yearns for a more attentive partner. We watch both women realize their dreams in a meandering but uneasy manner. Then Bergman strikes. He punctuates both storylines with profound moments of icy, acerbic cruelty that disabuse both women of their fantasies. The reductive epilogue disappointed, but there’s a through-line here to Neil LaBute’s best work.