Letter from an Unknown Woman

If I thought the film were intended to highlight how stupid both of these people are, I would think it a masterpiece. Formally, it is a wonder. Ophuls' camera always invites, drawing us toward the sumptuousness of life and love (at least, an idea of love). However, the protagonists have a "relationship" based on nothing--a man too full of himself to remember a woman he impregnated and a woman too caught up in the clouds to realize she's just one in a long line of ladies who's heard the same song and dance. Ophuls plays this for high tragedy--one of the great love stories just missed. It is high tragedy, but not for the reasons the film wants us to think.