So which was he? [SPOILERS]

Was Michael Joyce a good man with a bad streak, or a bad man with a good streak? Did he operate on the second girl from innate goodness or self-interested pride in his work? And does the motivation matter to wider society? Films usually invite us to categorise people into goodies & baddies despite real people rarely falling completely into just one camp.

I loved this film for allowing all the shades of grey that exist within humanity. The country doctor at the end was certainly sane, but had become cynically detached from his patients, whereas Joyce -who'd been similarly detached at the beginning- finally had his heart touched by a case but then this seemingly exposed his flawed character with deluded fantasies of being an expert murderer as well as acting as judge, jury & executioner on his sister-in-law.

I know several reviewers wanted him to get away with the murder, or at the very least, live, but I didn't feel the ending was a cop out to appease the censors; it was obeying the bleak, nihilistic tone of the whole film as well as the very logic that Joyce had used to do away with Kate: if someone has done wrong, they should pay, and his final realisation that the country doctor was right and that he wasn't "sane" was too offensive to his sense of superiority. The irony, of course, is that someone who really lacked sanity would go on deluding themselves that they were right and that the country doctor was wrong: ergo, he was sane and therefore not a "cracked glass" that had to be thrown away.

The film was certainly clunky (I kept wishing Hitchcock had directed it) and felt an awful lot longer than 1hr23, but the central themes being explored and Mason's acting made it well worth watching and pretty memorable. I'm so glad I found it on Youtube, since I've never once seen it on any tv listings.