Analysis
Austrian-American sex researcher Fritz Klein wrote, "we have the rich, full portrayal of two homosexual people; what is excluded is Amy's bisexuality; it is there, but it is vague, it is not dealt with, it is ignored; Amy would seem to be a lesbian, her marriage a sham; as a lesbian she is understood and viewed with sympathy; as a bisexual her existence is fuzzy."
Film historian Vito Russo wrote that in 1976, there were "two stunning television dramas, The Naked Civil Servant and The War Widow, which were positive evocations of the lives of gay characters, real and fictional; both shows infused their central characters with a sense of history and of their role in that history as strugglers for sexual freedom; both shows uncovered with romance and humor a hidden part of the gay experience." Russo argues that when Amy decides to leave her husband and her young daughter to choose a lifestyle that was "violently condemned at that time, was shown to be cataclysmic; thus her courage is striking yet understandable." He further opined that the ending of the film "encapsulates those women who left small towns all over the world for the anonymity and safety of larger cities where they could be with their own kind and begin to be the people they truly were."
Reception
Author Shayna Warner opined that "Harvey Perr and Paul Bogart created a sumptuously designed, carefully staged period piece of quiet despair being met by determination, in which upper-class, depressed, and harried mother Amy is brought back to her senses by bold portraitist Jenny." Terrence O'Flaherty of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote "it is an absolutely first-rate adult love story sensitively portrayed and beautifully produced; there is nothing vague about the nature of the love but it is handled with dignity and taste and the ending is honest."
Film critic John J. O'Connor wrote that the movie "encompasses a sympathetic treatment of a lesbian relationship but, more important, the characters are portrayed as intelligent people, not as ludicrous stereotypes." He goes on to say the film succeeds, "perhaps through its emotional validity more than anything else." He also offered praise for the actors, sayin the "performances are incredibly good; Pamela Bellwood's Amy is strikingly lovely and affecting; Francis Lee McCain is a revelation as Jennie, presenting the woman with a direct and appealing openness and Katharine Bard is perfectly distant and curiously sympathetic as Amy's mother."
Television critic Cecil Smith stated the film "is as perfect a television play as I can remember — very intimate and delicate and personal, the kind of play Paddy Chayevsky called 'the drama of the moment'; it's a mood piece, exquisitely fashioned under the sensitive direction of Paul Bogart; there is something very fragile and ethereal about it, like Japanese silk-screen paintings; their love affair is handled neither meanly nor shamefacedly but as a joyful encounter."
Michael Connor from The Wall Street Journal observed that "Harvey Perr's film is probably the most beautiful and sensitive treatment of love between two women that has ever been produced for TV." Critic Kay Gardella commented that "dealing with a subject like lesbianism is not easy; many resent the theme, but as Barbara Schultz so wisely points out, a successful drama engages your emotionally, you don't have to approve of the subject or even like it; but if it is effective and it works, it engages you and you can understand it on an emotional level."
