If you like Harold Pinter then you will find this film appealing. His influence in the screenplay and dialogue is strongly evident with typically long pauses and an emphasis on suggestion. When you team these up with Losey's gritty unconventional direction you end up with an interesting yarn about an insecure University Professor who gets himself into a complicated web of adulterous affairs which indirectly lead to tragedy. Bogarde, as the professor, essentially plays a womanising, chauvinistic toad. However, because he plays the character with the unforgettable Bogarde charm, you can't help but feel sorry for him, and almost forget that he has had an affair with a student, rekindled a romance with an old flame and appears unconcerned that his pregnant wife has prematurely given birth.
The film is wonderfully picturesque, being almost entirely set in Oxford during the height of a hot summer. Losey captures both the oppressiveness of the heat and the uncomfortable situation brilliantly, especially during the scene of the drunken Sunday lunch that Bogarde's character hosts some way into the film. There are some very good supporting roles in the form of Stanley Baker and Michael York and even a cameo appearance by Pinter himself. It's a film that you have to think about and make your own mind up about the characters and their importance to the plot.
The film is wonderfully picturesque, being almost entirely set in Oxford during the height of a hot summer. Losey captures both the oppressiveness of the heat and the uncomfortable situation brilliantly, especially during the scene of the drunken Sunday lunch that Bogarde's character hosts some way into the film. There are some very good supporting roles in the form of Stanley Baker and Michael York and even a cameo appearance by Pinter himself. It's a film that you have to think about and make your own mind up about the characters and their importance to the plot.