The film stars Walter Slezak as the titular Michael, the young assistant and model to the artist Claude Zoret (Benjamin Christensen).

A famous painter named Claude Zoret falls in love with one of his models, Michael, and for a time the two live happily as partners.

When a bankrupt countess comes to Zoret to have a portrait made — with the real intent of seducing him and swindling his money — she finds Michael to be more receptive to her advances.

Film critic Mordaunt Hall, writing in December 1926 for The New York Times, pronounced: "Chained" is a dull piece of work, redeemed only by some artistic scenes and Benjamin Christensen's able portrayal of Claude Zoret, an artist...The actress cast as a princess does not screen well, and Walter Slezak, who figures as the youth, gives a stilted, amateurish impersonation.

"[4] After Dreyer had further established himself as a prominent director through his later films – most notably The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), critics began to reevaluate Michael.

From the perspective of auteur theory, this film exhibits many trademark elements of Dreyer's personal directorial style, such as his use of close-ups in a "way that... makes a tranquil picture of overwhelming feelings.