The second of Altman's "disturbed women" films is a slight improvement on That Cold Day in the Park, but a definite disappointment coming between the high points of McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye. At this stage, he worked best when adapting strong stories by other authors rather than devising original stories.
Images is simply too schematic and obvious in its attempt at dream-like imagery. The near-constant use of fragmented and distorted reflections weighs down what is already a thin attempt at psychologizing, which is then summed up by a too-literal finale. Essentially the story of a woman haunted by jealousy brought on by her own affairs, Images pathologizes this less-than-compelling dilemma to the point of schizophrenia. We're trapped in the head of Susannah York's character, but find nothing of much interest there in either her confusions or revelations.
It's a sometimes lovely (especially in its use of the Irish countryside, which is nonetheless incidental to the film itself) and well-acted movie, but amounts to a pile-up of affectations - there's the round-robin name-swapping, with each of the lead actors playing a character with one of their co-stars' names (Rene Auberjonois as Hugh, Hugh Millais as Marcel, Marcel Bozzuffi as Rene). Then there's the interstitial readings from York's own then-in-progress children's book In Search of Unicorns that brings a sense of fantasy to the proceedings but doesn't align particularly well with the story being told. It's one of those gambles that Altman loved to take, but one of the more-rare-than-not cases where it doesn't pay off.
(I grabbed a copy of the book, incidentally, which is itself a fairly vague and anecdotal account of fantasy creatures and their battle against an evil nuisance, so maybe there was something in the air.)
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