Private Fears in Public Places is Resnais’ second adaptation of a play by British author Alan Ayckbourn, who is known for his ability to infuse farce with melancholy, a combination here transported to the members of a Parisian bourgeois intellectual milieu similar to that of Same Old Song. Resnais continues his explorations in combining cinema and theater by confining the action to a series of sets and connecting the many short scenes with shots of enigmatically beautiful snow falling. The film visually exploits its own theatricality with overhead shots and the use of walls and partitions that both diagram the characters’ movements and foreground their isolation in this bittersweet comedy about lost love and missed opportunities.