Nunca te prometí un jardín de rosas

This isn't a film that always works, but when it does, it finds its way so deep under your skin that the pain is surprising. The acting is what stands above everything else here. I suppose I'd seen Kathleen Quinlan before, but I can't say I've ever really noticed her. Maybe it's because she's so young, so human here that it stands out amongst everything else she did before and after this. Her performance is wild, heartbreaking, intensely realized. Other performances, like Bibi Andersson, are great, but not as essential as Quinlan.

This is ground that has been covered with perhaps more consistency (in a cinematic sense) with films like "Girl, Interrupted" but never with the same emotional depth as here. Anthony Page makes a lot of strange, even bad directorial decisions perhaps, but he captures a crazed, uneasy tone in the cinematography and performances that brings it all together. The only odd points are the off-center dreams/hallucination sequences and out-of-place soundtrack. If you can overlook these, this is a truly great film. It really tore my heart out.