Leonardo Bercovici's Story of a Woman arrived on the heels of a series of travelogue-like films in which international stars acted out romantic scenarios in glamorous locations to lush orchestration. Claude Lelouch's 1966 A Man and a Woman, for instance, clicked with audiences and critics alike—and helped to sell some records, too. Bercovici (co-writer, The Portrait of Jennie) appears to have been working towards a similar result, but this 1970 effort is a pale shadow of superior entries.
Persona's Bibi Andersson plays Karin, a Swedish student in Rome studying to become a concert pianist. Her 1963 meet-cute with Bruno (James Farentino), a handsome, if charisma-impaired medical student, occurs during a traffic jam in which Karin accidentally grazes his car. He's about to tell her off until he gets a look at the petite, blue-eyed blonde, and his irritation dissipates. Soon, they're running through sun-dappled forests as John Williams' overactive score aims for maximum swoon. During one of their outings, Bruno mentions that he considered becoming a professional soccer player. Karin is having the time of her life until the day she meets his weary wife Liliana (Annie Girardot, Rocco and His Brothers) who informs her that she's one in a long line of mistresses.
After that humiliating encounter, Karin returns to Stockholm to take long walks in the snow. Bruno sends letters, but she refuses to accept them. Her life as a single woman comes to a swift end when she has a second meet-cute, this time with David Frasier (Robert Stack, Written on the Wind), an American diplomat who pretends that his speedboat has run out of fuel in order to have an excuse to chat her up. Mutual attraction leads to a new relationship--and a new life after she accepts his marriage proposal. In the interest of full disclosure, she tells him about Bruno, swearing she no longer has feelings for him.
While she and David start a family in Washington DC, Bruno's relationship with Liliana goes from bad to cataclysmically worse. Six years later, the State Department transfers David to Rome. It's only a matter of time before Karin runs into her first love, and it happens immediately. Though Bruno, now a soccer star, has lost his emotional bearings, and though Karin claims she's happy, she still fantasizes about him. As she finds herself pulled from two sides, it's hard to shake the feeling that neither man is quite worthy of her affections, though one is certainly more stable.
If Andersson acquits herself nicely, Stack's David comes across as a controlling bore, whereas Farentino, who worked primarily in television, seems completely out of his depth. A pivotal scene in which Bruno reflects on a traumatic moment from his past, juxtaposed with awkwardly-edited shots of ski jumping in Cortina, comes across as more silly than stirring. Story of a Woman is sure to interest fans of Andersson, costume designer Edith Head, and the European scenery, but as a love story, it's a bust. An optional selection for classic film collections in libraries.