Till Glädje on AllMovie

To Joy is seminal Ingmar Bergman, filmed in 1948 and given a general release two years later. The film weaves an uncomplicated tale of a marriage and its slow disintegration. Stig Olin and Maj-Britt Nilsson are the husband and wife who just can't stop hurting one another, no matter how hard they try. Many of the themes more fully explored in later Bergman films are present here, though he hasn't yet fully mastered the medium of film. The best sequence is the last, wherein the disconsolate husband's spirits are lifted by a performance of Beethoven's Ode to Joy (hence the film's English-language title). The film was originally released in Sweden as Till gladje.