Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) begins with the world in disorder. Each person is out of place, paired in a wrong coupling that nonetheless seems desirable. Such mismatches must be seen through and undone: False pairs must be separated and each person joined with his or her proper partner. For some this will be a matter of “remarriage,” of annulling a divorce that has occurred earlier or restoring a union that has come apart; for others, it will be marriage itself and the creation of union for the first time. The current couplings – Fredrik with Anne, Carl-Magnus with Desirée, and Henrik with Petra – must be undone and rearranged. What makes matters difficult is that these reallocations of commitment and desire can occur only if accompanied by each person's discovery that such changes will put them where they belong and satisfy their heart's true desire. For Fredrik in particular, real marriage will require both self-knowledge and the humility to accept a perspective broader than his own. The order that results is a gift of life, at least for the moment, and a wisdom that recognizes life's seasons of growth and decay, youth and age.

The other great theme of the film, set within its mythic rhythms and providing its dramatic energy, is the struggle between the sexes, and in particular, the taming of male pride and puffery with its egotism and self-seriousness. Relationships between men and women must be readjusted to mitigate the excesses of this exaggerated masculinity and its accompanying femininity that typifies all the characters, except Desirée, and in fact binds them together in their original pairings.