“This is a movie about sight; from the first moment the two meet, it is filled with what is seen and what is not seen, as Stephen suffers though a dinner party with his wife, his son, Anna and her mother – and some observe, and some do not, what has happened. Casting is everything here. Stephen could easily come to seem like a fool, and some actors could have played him no other way.Jeremy Irons, gaunt and aesthetic, brings no fleshy pleasure to the role. Love makes him look like a condemned man, and he feels guilty about sleeping with his son’s fiancee, but he must, he cannot help himself, and so he does. The heart knows what it must have. Juliette Binoche also embodies qualities that are essential to the film. She is attractive, but not in a conventional movie way; her faceis solemn and serious, and she is capable of showing nothing and yet suggesting multitudes.”

(Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times,January 22, 1993)