What a refreshing break from all the mindless noise of much of modern cinema this little-seen film is! You actually get to hear people TALK - perhaps too much, for some tastes, but when the dialogue is so expertly written (by Harold Pinter), why complain? The time-in-reverse gimmick puts an interesting spin on the usual love-triangle tale, plus it turns the movie into a great mathematical exercise (at each point you can calculate how many years Kingsley and Hodge have been married, at what stage the Irons-Hodge affair is, how old the kids are, etc.). In its frank and adult handling of marital infidelity and extra-marital affairs, "Betrayal" can be compared to a Claude Chabrol film. The direction is simple and naturalistic, never overshadowing the characters, who are excellently played by a fantastic trio of actors. However, if you're expecting a mind-blowing "revelation" at the end of the picture, you will not get it; the end is only the beginning of the story, after all. *** out of 4.

It has often been said that great books can not be made into great movies, that is not the case here. This is a story by one of the greatest writers in the English language since Shakespeare and screen play by the one man who truly understood the agony behind the story. Mix that with three of the best English actors of the modern age and you have a mesmerizing story in cinematic form. Do not miss this movie if you are a fan of great literature and great movie making. At first the reverse chronology may seem a bit confusing, but ultimately it proves the genius of the director's ability to plumb the depths of the friendship and the relationship of all the characters in this sad, sad story. You will not be disappointed.

This was a horrible movie. It seemed to have nothing but head shots of two people talking about their relationship, which I found incredibly boring. The bizarre moving backwards in time made it incomprehensible as well - Memento made moving backwards a key part of the movie, whereas here it seemed to be something purely aimed at giving the art house crowd something to talk about. I saw it in the theater, and was so bored and confused that I walked out (with my date) half an hour in.

I watched this movie because I heard that the screen-writer had used a unique structure--the story is told backwards in time. Every succeeding scene occurs chronologically before the previous one. I wanted to see if the screen-writer was just using a gimmick, or if the structure actually added to the telling of the story. I was overjoyed to find out it was the latter! The magic of this movie is that Pinter makes the time sequence seem natural. By the end of the movie, the viewer is convinced this is the only way the story could have been told effectively. I highly recommend this movie to all who love cinema.