Critic Reviews
88
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
16(94%)
mixed
1(6%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 17 Critic Reviews
100
This is one of the truly outstanding works of post-war European cinema.
100
A wonderfully composed movie in which Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way
100
Possibly Ingmar Bergman's finest film and a landmark in film history.
100
The bitter has not yet overpowered the sweet in this early film from writer-director Ingmar Bergman.
100
Initially, Wild Strawberries appears to be an almost pointedly unsubtle coming-of-age story that’s been goosed with dime-store surrealism and male handwringing masked as intellectual engagement with humankind. But the bluntness is a misdirection that underlines the depth of Bergman’s empathy with his hero as well as his dedication to his real subject, which is the process of mentally freeing oneself from an insidiously limiting self-mythology.
100
The story now sounds like fodder for a rote “old codger learns to like people” narrative, but Wild Strawberries is more about a man’s gradual coming to terms with who he was, who he is, and what he’s leaving behind.
100
The movie, beautifully written, photographed and acted, remains Bergman's most characteristic work, alternating between terror and charm, sentiment and humor. It has one of the loveliest last scenes in any Bergman film. [10 Dec 2004, p.C5]
100
In a way, Wild Strawberries is a cliche of a Bergman movie, but no cliche ever seemed more perceptive, more gentle, more understanding of human foibles and imperfection, or more humorous. [25 Jul 1997]
91
A film that goes where many others have gone (yes, this is Scrooge for Ph.D.s) but with a subtlety few have dreamed of?
90
Wild Strawberries, which, while scarcely a bag of laughs, has a compassionate view of life that best illustrates the more optimistic side of Bergman's puzzled humanity.
