Possibly the finest romantic comedy ever made, Smiles of a Summer Night is Bergman's elegy to the transience of love. A tragicomic discourse on manners, morality, and sex, the film is set at a country estate during a fin-de-siècle weekend as eight characters evolve into four couples. The theatrical satire and sexual farce have long-standing roots in Shakespeare and burlesque, but the glimpses of despair and contempt reveal Bergman's distinctive touch. Bergman's opus, which inspired both a Broadway musical and film of the same title (not to mention Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy), is a genuinely comic and superbly acted rondo of love.