The acting in this film is first class, the production, sets, costumes are exemplary, but the story line for me has not stood the test of time. Variations of the story line has been used more than once and it needed a great script to cover up the cracks that are inherent with it! Worth a watch though just for the quality of the acting!
Sensitive and beautiful period adaptation of Rebecca West's debut novel set during WWI. There's an exceptional cast, with Alan Bates as a wealthy landowner and officer whose PTSD triggers the amnesia which takes away his memories of the previous 20 years...
Which means the entire marriage to his selfish and proud- but attractive- aristocratic wife (Julie Christie). He renews a connection with his earlier love for a tenant of the estate (Glenda Jackson) who has grown careworn in relative hardship.
Ann-Margret is improbably cast as a poor relation/spinster, but she's fine. There's an implication the shell-shock has allowed the soldier to subconsciously reject his social rank, as well as his marriage. Certainly the old flame is more steadfast than the wife.
There's a sumptuous production, from the lovely music to the Edwardian set decors. The events unravel at leisure. It gently finds fault with the inherited privilege of the aristocracy, but this is no polemic. Everyone accepts their status, which ultimately, is their tragedy.