Summary

Solid acting performances accompany commendable direction in Liv Ullmann’s emotion-fraught Swedish love-triangle drama that makes some progress in exploring the highly damaging effects of infidelity.

The Plot

Three adults are caught in a love triangle. Marianne is happily married to Markus, a successful conductor. They have a nine-year-old daughter, Isabelle. Markus’s best friend is David. Twice divorced, David is often at Marianne and Markus’ apartment, and is Isabelle’s favourite storyteller. One night, while Markus is away, David visits the flat as usual. But the sexual and emotional attraction that Marianne and David have for one another changes what was once a platonic friendship. An intense affair develops, with devastating consequences.

Artistic and Technical Merit

Artistically and technically Faithless is of solid quality. Liv Ullmann directs the film with great skill and brings out some good performances from the cast members – especially leading lady Lena Endre (playing Marianne). That said, whether due to the writing or the direction, the characterisation did feel a little flat at times; dwelling too much on the melancholic to the detriment of creating fully-rounded and truly interesting characters. Though somewhat over-long the pace is generally good, and the use of voice-over and cut-backs to Bergman’s light-filled office lends the film a somewhat poetic tone typical of many Nordic films.

Moral Merit

There is a good level of awareness of the highly damaging effects of divorce, indeed the film starts with the following quote from Botho Strauss: “No common failure, whether it be sickness or bankruptcy or professional misfortune will reverberate so cruelly and deeply in the unconscious as a divorce. It penetrates the seat of all anguish forcing it to life. With one cut it slices more deeply than life can ever reach”. This indeed is partly true, though it must be stated that abortion is also a common failure and reverberates far deeper than divorce. Nevertheless, Faithless leaves no doubt in the mind that divorce and infidelity are highly damaging and no solution to life’s problems.

However, whilst giving a reasonable level of acknowledgement to Marianne’s omnipresent nine-year-old daughter Isabelle (Michelle Gylemo), the focus of the screenplay remains on the mess that the adults are getting into. The effects on Isabelle and her presence are considered relatively little when compared to the children featured in Kramer vs Kramer (1979) or Dear Frankie (2004) to take two examples. And despite the downbeat synopsis claiming “no one is innocent, people manipulate those they love, secrets are revealed, and everyone is faithless”, the fact is there is at least one innocent person here – Isabelle.

Redemptive Merit

For couples that may be experiencing marital problems or for individuals tempted by the lure of an affair, Faithless may well provide a welcome reminder that infidelity leads nowhere and is in fact more likely to create deeper more-damaging problems than solve any of the existing ones. And in that respect, dissuading anyone from such activity is redemptive.

However, for such couples there is little offered in the way of an alternative or a solution to their problems. In fact there is some risk that those already tarnished by a negative experience or observance of marriage may well be led to increase their cynicism towards the sacrament having watched this film.

There is no suggestion at any point that forgiveness or prayer may be a solution to their problems, and there is also no acknowledgement of the reason such affairs occur in the first place – which is primarily due to the absence of Jesus in the relationship. Once again the synopsis is in error stating “what was once a safe, platonic friendship…” whereas the fact is that any marriage without God at the centre of it is far less safe than any marriage with God at the centre of it.

Content and Age Appropriateness

The positive messages communicated from Faithless are a little ambiguous; there are several sexual encounters (non-graphical); one instance of frontal nudity (unnecessarily), a highly graphical monologue of a sexual encounter (unnecessarily), reference to an abortion with only a passing comment, reference to suicide with only a passing comment and some crass language.

The MPAA rating is R, the BBFC rating is 15 and the USCCB rating is A-IV (Adults, with reservations). The USCCB and MPAA ratings would appear to be appropriate. Faithless may appeal to adults that have experience of marital struggles or those that have an academic interest in marital breakdown. From an artistic point of view the film may also to people with an interest in world and/or European cinema.