Preminger transformed Sagan's incisive novelette into a masterpiece of ambiguity, with a piercing yet compassionate moral stance.

There's some interesting psychology at play in the film, especially as the daughter indulges in increasingly awful behavior to try and restore her preferred hedonistic life, but Preminger's cinematic sensibilities are a little too formal to allow the darkest, trickiest elements to come to forefront. It doesn't help that the youthful role is filled by Seberg in only her second onscreen performance. She's sadly wooden in the precise moments when insight and nuance is most needed.