So this is obviously a tribute to Ingmar Bergman and can be expected to full of references to the director. Our cinephile friend liked it but I can’t say that I do. It’s nice to see it set on Fårö, the director’s favorite island, but apart from that this seems very shallow with not even the film within the film being very interesting. The references too are disappointing, basically acting as a kind of repository about trivia of Bergman’s life rather than any attempt to emulate his work or his themes.

Wife and husband Chris and Tony Sanders are both directors and they are also fans of Ingmar Bergman, making a working retreat on Fårö an attractive proposition for them. They even stay in the cottage where Bergman filmed Scenes from a Marriage and joke about the bed that has led to millions of divorces. After hearing anecdotes about Bergman’s personal life however, Chris realizes that the great director was not a good father or husband. While Tony finds his time on the island to be productive, Chris is less so and sneaks away while Tony is hosting a screening of one of his films. She meets a local, Hampus, who is a film student, and he takes her on a private tour of the island. She later tries to get Tony to help her with her project about a woman reuniting with a former lover on Fårö but he seems distracted and too busy with his own work to be of much help. Nonetheless her film project does get made and is shot on the island itself.

The film includes real world scenes from Chris’ perspective and later scenes from her film project. Unfortunately neither of the two perspectives are very interesting. Her film within a film feels particularly aimless about a woman who is still attracted to her former lover who in any case first left her years before. This might be a worthy project if it had more consciously tried to be an imitation Bergman film but there’s no depth to it at all and not even an attempt to make the photography look like Bergman’s work. Chris’ scenes hold more promise though I feel that Tony is oddly absent as a character, making casting Tim Roth to play him kind of a waste. There at least there is some hint of an attraction between Chris and Hampus but they are all adults about it so there is no drama when Chris tells Tony how she spent her day. I’m not sure what the wider point might be except that real life is not like a Bergman film, which is odd for something that is meant to be a kind of tribute to Bergman.

The film is perhaps strongest as a rumination on the differing ways that one can be creative. Tony has no difficulty in immediately getting to work and dislikes talking about his work for fear of jinxing it. Chris though seems to have trouble writing anything until she is inspired by a personal emotional connection. Having failed to get meaningful feedback from Tony, she makes progress when she meets Hampus and spends some time in Bergman’s house. Similarly the film never goes very deep into this. Chris takes a look through Tony’s notebook at one point and note his doodles of female figures in subjugated positions but never raises the point with him and it never comes up again.

It’s a pretty film and there are plenty of interesting anecdotes for committed fans of Bergman. But overall it’s shallow and feels a bit like half-hearted fanfiction. The premise is intriguing but the film fails to do it any justice and in the end you must ask yourself why this even exists.