Saturday Night and Sunday Morning holds one principally as the portrait of a dimly dawning conscience, a boy-into-man metamorphosis too consistently honest to permit false ironies or heroics. But it has other distinctions.

There is one mannerism, a somber, time-devouring stare which [Albert Finney] wedges into each seduction, that destroys the credible surface of his characterization. It gives the role an inexplicable theatricality.

The photography is good clear documentary, the acting is excellent (especially Albert Finney and Rachel Roberts), the novel is rendered faithfully, but the movie is static.

It is never tied to stage precedents; and, unlike them, it keeps entirely within its world, introducing no characters to tell its audience what to think but making its points through firm writing and close observation.