Face to Face

Face to Face follows a married pair of doctors whose quiet professional life begins to unravel when one partner experiences a severe mental disturbance. Jenny Isaksson, a physician, finds her grip on daily routines slipping as anxiety, confusion, and inner turmoil spill into the rooms they share at home and in the hospital. Her husband Tomas Jacobi, also a psychiatrist, is pulled into a tense balance between clinical detachment and intimate care. Bergman does not sensationalize the crisis; instead he places the couple under a clinical lens, letting long silences, precise dialogue, and close, unflinching framing reveal the strain between obligation and affection. The result is a wintry portrait of vulnerability within a fragile bond built on trust and professional duty.

Directed by Ingmar Bergman and released in 1976, Face to Face stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It is Bergman’s own screenplay, crafted as an original work rather than adapted from another source, a hallmark of his personal, uncompromising approach.

Box office data for Face to Face is not widely documented; the film’s release predates the era of exhaustive international gross reporting, so reliable worldwide numbers are not publicly available and often vary by archive or archival listings in catalogs.

The film stands as a stark entry in Bergman’s late seventies phase, noted for its clinical gaze and restrained performances. Ullmann’s portrayal of strain and vulnerability and Bergman’s patient camera work contributed to ongoing discussions about mental health and female professionals on screen. It remains a reference point in cinema.

Critics greeted Face to Face as a disciplined, austere examination of care and control within intimate partnership. The film foregrounds the tension between personal duty and private need, using minimal settings and long takes to probe how love survives when sanity falters in real life relationships as well and beyond.