[1] Betrayal follows significant moments in the seven-year extramarital affair of art gallery owner Emma with literary agent Jerry, the best friend of her husband Robert, a London publisher.

[2][3] New York Times film critic Vincent Canby said Harold Pinter is "justifiably celebrated" and that "nothing he has written for the stage has ever been as simply and grandly realized on the screen as his Betrayal".

He applauded the performances of the three lead actors, the direction, and the meaningful application of reverse chronology, and summed up that "I can't think of another recent film that is simultaneously so funny, so moving and so rigorously unsentimental.

[5] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader, by contrast, argued that "The reverse-order gimmick of Harold Pinter's screenplay seems meant to revitalize some trite and tedious material—the breakup of a love affair—yet the expected literary games don't materialize: the film plods backward in time with the same dull linearity it would have moving forward."

"[7] Variety commented that Patricia Hodge gave a much less compelling performance than the other two leads but summed up the film as "an absorbing, quietly amusing chamber drama for those attuned to Harold Pinter’s way with words.