When [Gavin] Lambert expresses "wonder" regarding "why there was such a terrible controversy over something very charming and very lightweight," he's possibly overlooking the film's almost schizoid shifts between that ethereal surface charm and some other darker, heavier, disturbing undercurrents. (2) Indeed, what haunts this sunny, picaresque romance, and its often delectable dalliances in gender-identity, is the spectre of a gritty, disconcertingly cynical psychodrama.
Peter H. Kemp
October 4, 2002