![]() The picture was a big hit, and it may spark conversations about friendships and our need to be around what is familiar-even if it nags at us-but Alda doesn't allow for solutions. Burnett is tough to get a grip on here, and I don't know if it's the writing or just the tack she's taken here as an actress, but her rigid/passive/supporting-but-unhappy wifey doesn't showcase any particular feeling Bess Armstrong, as the new friend, doesn't get a good strong scene until almost the end, and that's because Alda enjoys poking fun at her youthful idealism (even at the end, Armstrong is stuck with dippy dialogue like, "I'm going to take a run in the snow!"). The final act allows Alda's repressed character to finally react and blow off some steam, yet the responses he elicits (particularly from his wife, Carol Burnett) aren't believable-the characters all sound and act too much like each other for there to be nuances in their reactions. Two college-age daughters are introduced (played by Alda's real-life children), but they don't seem to be familiar with anyone at the table. One couple separates and the man brings a new woman into the fold, but his ex-wife (the wonderful Sandy Dennis) is much more interesting and sympathetic than who we're left with. ![]() ![]() The film isn't whiny, but it has shapeless scenes that are overdrawn-and the longer they go, the more rambling they become. Writer-director-star Alan Alda shows a surprisingly stylish eye for the beauty of the changing seasons, and as a writer he knows how to shake off the melodramatic doldrums and be funny, but his sense of style and pacing isn't helped by his need to be educational, to teach us all something about ourselves (this movie hints that maybe he's been in therapy too long). Three couples-best friends-are seen on four trips together during the course of a year.
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