In many ways this film is remarkable. The story is a classic love/convenience triangle. And helplessly jealous Morgan is cut out to be the big loser from the start. A working class hopeful and a painter, he is just not willing to become an adult and prefers to descend into lunacy instead. His attempts to win back his upper class ex wife, an insecure character herself, are childish and quixotic in nature and enlighten the basically sad story with slapstick moments. The acting is mostly very good. David Warner is sweet and unforgettable – why he was chosen to play so many villains later in his career remains a mystery to me. Vanessa Redgrave's Oscar nomination was well deserved. Irene Handl as Morgan's mother is also very good. She represents the family background with its Marxist tradition. Apparently her generation hoped that lads like Morgan would become the enlightened new leaders of their movement! Instead, her son is a good for nothing character, for him the emblems of communism are just a decor to shock the petty bourgeois.
At the time this movie was made, it became chic again to be orientated toward the left. In China Mao started the Cultural Revolution, being a Red meant (in the West, at least) being unconventional, hip and somehow liberated. This romantic, pubertal New Left lasted more ore less until the genocide in Cambodia, then their supporters integrated themselves into the existing system or indulged in esoteric activities (or both). To me Morgan somehow represents the New Left which then emerged.
At the time this movie was made, it became chic again to be orientated toward the left. In China Mao started the Cultural Revolution, being a Red meant (in the West, at least) being unconventional, hip and somehow liberated. This romantic, pubertal New Left lasted more ore less until the genocide in Cambodia, then their supporters integrated themselves into the existing system or indulged in esoteric activities (or both). To me Morgan somehow represents the New Left which then emerged.