"Not another version of the Cocteau fable but a sensitively handled family story about a father...who feels (his sixteen-year-old daughter) has undermined their mutual trust by attaching herself to a rather louche photographer. At the same time, he becomes con- scious of his own intense feelings for her...Malmros manages the difficult task of presenting this situation in terms of adult drama and not cliché, shading the central relationship with a myriad of little incidents which reveal the characters' secret thoughts (the father's fear of losing his youth, the daughter's awareness of her growing sexuality), leavening it with quiet, snide humor. It is also a most elegant piece of filmmaking, with the camera paying attention to every nuance and making the father's house an equal protagonist as we watch the characters move from room to room, the sound of Purcell floating ecstatically in the air." John Gillett, London Film Festival '85