Bryant’s review published on Letterboxd:
Criterion Challenge 2022
Progress: 48/52
Prompt: watch a film on the Hollywood Classics list
That's about as savage a movie as I expect to see this year. Tom Neal's an amazingly depressing sad sack who isn't ever going to blame himself for anything. "Oh, man, somehow she just talked me into doing the dumb thing!" Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
I didn't think twice about the assumption that the narrative is his self-serving version of what happened. The facts just aren't consistent with what we see. We know he's lying to himself, so there's almost no chance he isn't lying to us, too. "Sue loved me!" What a sap.