Sofie (1992) Online

A touching story on the life of Sofie, a sweet human dedicated to the innocence of living. One day she stumbles upon passion but her heart settles for the safety net, and so she dwells on what could have been and takes actions later in life. Almost an European soap opera but a tight script with minimal dialogue and simple direction makes this a film Ingmar Bergman would have been proud of.

The former actress directs wonderfully, no doubt having absorbed some of the talents of her director/husband Ingmar Bergman. Bergman wrote the script for Sophie ... about an unhappily married Jewish woman who has obeyed her parents by marrying a distant cousin instead of the gentile painter with whom she is in love. So carefully put together that one finds oneself totally absorbed in the warm atmosphere Miss Uhlman has created.

A bittersweet, poetic story on the ephemeral nature of life, with all its loves and losses.

Those who have read Liv's memoirs (highly recommended!) will recognise some of the unforgettable sentences that convey her bewilderment at the swiftness of man's passage through this life.

As another reviewer said, Bergman would be - and possibly was - very proud of this film. It has all of his strengths, but none of his conceits, which makes it more accessible without diluting its depth. I do feel, however, that it would be unfair and inaccurate to place too much emphasis on Bergman's influence. The insights that constitute the "heart" and mind of this narrative are Liv's and Liv's alone. (Again, read her memoirs, written many years before this film, to see what I mean.)

A wonderful - and, I feel, grossly underrated - film.

Dreadful. Obviously given to Ullman on the strengths of her acting and connections with Bergman. Underlit even viewed and openly mocked in an art-house movie theatre, under-edited, and dreary.

A mawkish plot, as someone commented above like a Scandinavian soap opera, coming in at a sadistic and mind-pummelling two-and-a-half hours, when tale easily told in five minutes: downtrodden wallflower spurns the one she loves for an petit-bourgeois orthodox madman chosen by her racist parents, only to live a life of isolation, angst and mental anguish, rather like the movie audience. Physically painful to watch; do not attempt without clasping a fast-forwarding device in a death-grip. Irrepressibly drab and awful. Avoid at all costs.