I watched this for the first way back in the 80s, a few years after it came out. I remember I liked it then, though not as much as another Alda film, Sweet Liberty, which seems hard to find these days. The Four Seasons feels more obvious to me this time around, probably an unfair comparison because of having seen it once and because I am obviously a different person with many more layers of experience added on after all this time. For starters, I have written many novels over the years, and that has changed how I look at movie plots, I believe. Anyway, parts of this movie are still very good. There is an undeniable chemistry between some of the main characters, starting with Alan Alda and Carol Burnett’s couple. The banter is great at times, though occasionally repetitious. Growth in the characters seems very slow usually, which may be part of the point. We seem to take a long time getting to Alda’s character’s breakout moment, which the entire film points towards. I would have liked to see more done with Lisa’s depressed character as I felt left hanging there. Interesting that she was played by Alan Alda’s daughter. And it was also interesting to see Rita Moreno in an early role, having seen her recently in 80 for Brady and knowing I knew her but not knowing exactly from where. So it is a good film, perhaps with not quite as much depth as it signals that it will have. It feels a bit stagnated waiting for the big moment by Alan Alda’s repressed character.
This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.
To make their divorce final, a Quaker couple must follow tradition by seeking out everyone who came to their wedding...and asking them to cross their names off the marriage certificate.
After years of helping their hubbies climb the ladder of success, three mid-life Manhattanites have been dumped for a newer, curvier model. But the trio is determined to turn their pain into gain. They come up with a cleverly devious plan to hit their exes where it really hurts - in the wallet!
Two women, one from the United States and one from the United Kingdom, swap homes at Christmas time after bad breakups with their boyfriends. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.
Angela Bennett is a freelance computer systems analyst who tracks down software viruses. At night she hooks up to the internet and chats to others 'surfing the net'. While de-bugging a new high-tech game for a cyber friend, she comes across a top secret program and becomes the target of a mysterious organization who will stop at nothing to erase her identity and her existence, in order to protect the project.
Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married with Franca and father of Sabine, around 10. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stand staying away from her.
Cross stories of three women who find themselves in a cottage retreat in the Tuscan countryside during the Christmas holidays. One is a widow, another is divorced, and the third is on the verge of separation. They have led with them their respective children, who, as innocent and naive, will manage amidst a thousand difficulties to restore the failing households and give the widow a glimpse of the possibility of new love.
The Roses, Barbara and Oliver, live happily as a married couple. Then she starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver, and likes what she sees. Both want to stay in the house, and so they begin a campaign to force each other to leave. In the middle of the fighting is D'Amato, the divorce lawyer. He gets to see how far both will go to get rid of the other, and boy do they go far.
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.
A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier.
Eddy and Patsy prepare to go on a skiing holiday to hopefully indulge in the jet-setting lifestyle of the international celebrity elite when Saffy is proposed to by her stuffy, upper-class boyfriend, Paolo. Eddy hits the slopes and has a near death experience where God appears to her and tells her it's not yet her time. When Eddy comes to, she waits for a sign that she should get involved in Saffy's wedding. As she returns to the house, it appears all hell has broken loose- relatives piling up, practically squatting, and Saffy about to lose her mind. Eddy calms her by throwing money at her as they bond together, planning Saffy's dream wedding. What could go wrong?