Summer with Monika

Monika works at a vegetable stall in Stockholm, and Harry, a young man of about nineteen, lives nearby. After an evening at the cinema and a night together on his father's boat, Harry loses his job, and the two leave the city for the archipelago. Their summer there is carefree at first, but when Monika becomes pregnant they return to Stockholm and marry. Married life in a cramped flat soon wears on them, and the strain between the two, along with Monika's restlessness, begins to pull the relationship apart.

Ingmar Bergman directed and co-wrote the film with Per Anders Fogelström, working from the latter's novel. Released in 1953, it is the second of the twenty-four features Bergman directed, arriving between Waiting Women and Smiles of a Summer Night. Harriet Andersson plays Monika opposite Lars Ekborg as Harry, with Dagmar Ebbesen, Åke Fridell, Naemi Briese and Åke Grönberg in supporting roles. Allan Ekelund produced for SF Studios, and the film runs 98 minutes.

Among critics it holds a rating of 8.2 out of 10 from sixteen reviews, while on IMDb and on TMDB audiences rate it somewhat lower, at 7.3 out of 10 from over four hundred votes on the latter. That gap suggests the film is held in higher regard by professional reviewers than by casual viewers, though the audience score still points to a broadly favourable reception for this early Bergman drama.