"Miss Julie" plays in almost real-time, taking place in one setting over the course of a single evening, Midsummer Night's Eve, the one long night of the year when the classes blend together, when rich dance and drink with poor, when the boundaries have blurred. Terrified of the consequences with the Count, Jean commands her to flee. Summary of Strindberg's Miss Julie Miss Julie the play opens in the kitchen on the eve of Midsummer. Jean and Julie return and flirt more. The sun rises, breaking the spell of Midsummer's Eve. She walks out the door.SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. Crushed, Julie says she deserves his abuse.Jean proposes anew that they flee together. Farrell manages all of this gracefully and sensitively, as though he were born to play the role. Julie took her mother's side and grew up to hate men as her mother did. Suddenly the two hear sounds upstairs: the Count has come back. In Strindberg, you can't really rebel. He cannot promise grace but tells her that she is definitely among the last. The bell rings twice, and Jean commands Julie to her death. Jean tells her that they are singing a dirty song about them and suggests that they flee to his room. Jean has dreamed the opposite, yearning to improve his status. "Miss Julie" is filled with small moments like that, small behavioral moments that are rich and strange, trembling with possibility and terror.Miss Julie was raised with massive financial advantages, but she was also raised in total chaos. Christine leaves, promising to tell the stable boy to stop any attempted departures on their part. When Julie's father finally took command, her mother fell ill. A mysterious fire then burned down the estate. Christine speaks of their redemption, saying the last shall be first. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire Strindberg was a nervous man, whose plays read like frenziedly-written journal entries of despair and anxiety (crying out, like Dr. Venkman in "Ghostbusters," "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!")

For Strindberg to work, one must feel the context of his time, and understand Miss Julie's immediate ruination by "falling" for the valet (the script is filled with images of rising and falling).Ullmann's adaptation of Strindberg's script stays very close to the original; the main change being that it now takes place on an estate in Ireland. Jean says that Julie's mother set the fire, and the friend was her lover. August Strindberg felt that the entire world had gone crazy. Some of her best moments are reaction shots. The setting is an estate of a count in Sweden. She pledges to stay, to wait for her father and confess everything. As Miss Julie babbles to her about how she and Jean are going to set up a hotel on Lake Como, and maybe Kathleen can work in the kitchen there, and marry a nice man eventually, Morton's face shows the deep horror of not only what she is seeing, but the clear madness in Chastain's performance. Inner conflict with Ibsen leads to ideas; with Strindberg it leads to chaos.

The revolt is a strong, nervous one. There are a couple of scenes in Jean's bedroom, and one outdoor scene when Jean and Miss Julie take a walk. She has fallen for him. She's a whore to him now. Believing in the independence of women, Julie's mother brought the estate to ruin. Julie approaches the chopping block, mesmerized. Jean says that in that case, the plans are off. "When Liv Ullmann's "Miss Julie" works best, it shows us that total emotional and social chaos, chaos that destroys not only the individual characters in the play, but the entire society in which they live. Julie and Jean return to the kitchen. That is the crux of Miss Julie's problem, and that is the destabilizing effect that Jean, the good-looking valet, has on her. Miss Julie (Jessica Chastain) is the indecorous daughter of a titled landowner, whose offscreen antics open the plot by thoroughly humiliating her father's valet, John (Colin Farrell) on Midsummer Night. He grew up on a wasteland. Lovelorn, Jean watched Julie walk among the roses.

Disgusted, Christine decides that she cannot remain in the house. "Kill me too!" He's not to be trifled with. Under Julie's orders, Jean kneels in mock gallantry and kisses her foot. Legendary acting teacher Stella Adler lectured extensively on Strindberg (and other playwrights), and these lectures have been published in a wonderful volume, "Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov." screams Julie. Christine falls asleep next to the stove. she breathes. Dressed for travel, Julie appears with a small birdcage. She exclaims that she wants to see Jean's head on a chopping block and his entire sex swimming in blood. Abruptly, Jean declares that behave coolly, as if nothing has happened. The Count's lovely garden was visible from his window. Her mother taught her to hate men. He says that he danced with Miss Julie, the … The following Sunday, he went to church, determined to see Miss Julie once more, and then attempted suicide.Moved, Julie asks Jean to take her out to the lake. Ullmann opens up the action only slightly, with the reveling Midsummer Night's Eve crowds always offstage, heard but never seen. They exit. It is set on Midsummer's Eve and the following morning, which is Midsummer and the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist.