Faithless TV Reboot Stretches Bergman’s 2000 Film to 6 Episodes as Chemistry Falters
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 7
Faithless TV Reboot Stretches Bergman’s 2000 Film to 6 Episodes as Chemistry Falters
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 7
Summary
Six episodes on Sky Atlantic and Now give Faithless more room than Liv Ullmann’s 2000 Bergman film to trace the affair between Marianne and David across 1977 Stockholm and a present-day reunion.
Tomas Alfredson and writer Sara Johnsen use that expanded structure to make Marianne more central, but the review says the early episodes sink into bohemian fantasy and heavy-handed erotic signaling.
Frida Gustavsson and Gustav Lindh are judged the series’ main weakness, with tepid chemistry blunting the sense of irresistible attraction that the story needs before its destructive consequences can land.
Lena Endre—who played young Marianne in the 2000 film—returns as the older Marianne, linking the reboot to Bergman’s original even as it drops the film’s unreliable-storyteller framing device.
The verdict is mixed: the adaptation is seen as psychologically thinner than Bergman at his best, yet still watchable for its stylish late-20th-century setting and seductive retro mood.