A fairly glossy, good-looking period film, with apt sets and costumes as one would expect, and a haunting atmosphere thanks to some excellent bits of music, the film is nevertheless jarred by the way it changes tone. It begins as a drama, but then it turns into a thriller in the second half, and does not really revert back. This leaves open the question of whether there was any point to the first half of the film at all. It does not help to understand the characters any better, and in fact they all seem rather shallow the whole time. Jane Fonda has some good moments, but she also has a tendency to go over-the-top now and again. Robards and Redgrave won Oscars for their performances, but it is hard to see why against the other nominees. The best acting moments belong to Maximilian Schell as the mysterious Mr. Johann, but Susan Jones, who plays Fonda's character as a youth, also deserves a mention. The train sequences are admittedly exciting, but the scenes that are shown before the film there are only questionably necessary. It is not a great film overall, but it is a good one.
