Critic Rating
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Director
Ingmar Bergman
Cast
Victor Sjöström,
Bibi Andersson,
Ingrid Thulin,
Gunnar Björnstrand,
Jullan Kindahl,
Gunnar Sjöberg
Genre
Drama
Retired doctor Isak Borg sets out on a long car ride from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Traveling with his daughter-in-law, who hates him and plans to leave Isak's son, creates a tenuous environment. As Isak experiences nightmares, daydreams, hitchhikers, and old age, he starts to reevaluate his life.
Beautiful and inspiring, Wild Strawberries is one of Bergman's best. Isak reflects on his future, past, and present throughout the film, confronting his fears and mistakes. Bergman understands how to depict the human condition through the conscious and subconscious experiences' of Isak, ultimately grounding the film in its humanity.
TV Guide Magazine
Possibly Ingmar Bergman's finest film and a landmark in film history.
BBC
This is one of the truly outstanding works of post-war European cinema.
Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen
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.
LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen
The bitter has not yet overpowered the sweet in this early film from writer-director Ingmar Bergman.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
A wonderfully composed movie in which Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
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]
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
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]
IndieWire by Max O'Connell
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.
TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)
Possibly Ingmar Bergman's finest film and a landmark in film history.
BBC by Tom Dawson
This is one of the truly outstanding works of post-war European cinema.
Entertainment Weekly by Ty Burr
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?
The Guardian by Derek Malcolm
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.
Time Out
It's an occasionally over-symbolic work (most notably in the opening nightmare sequence), but it's filled with richly observed characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth.
Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr
There's a lot of allegorical baggage on board, but the film's virtues lie in its relative simplicity.
Total Film
For those who think legendary cine-Swede Ingmar Bergman's films are aloof and coldly austere, this warm, welcoming 1957 road movie of aged reflection - the inspiration for Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry - might come as a surprise.
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
This one is so thoroughly mystifying that we wonder whether Mr. Bergman himself knew what he was trying to say.
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