tavives Another reviewer mentioned how this movie has changed for them since they first saw it - and not in a good way.For me, "The Four Seasons" has only become more relevant.I'm watching this on Encore as I write this. When I first saw this back in 1981, I was 16 and getting ready to entire my senior year in HS. I absolutely fell in love with this film but my perspective as a teenager had me seeing these people as my parents generation and wondering if when I reached their age I would have this kind of relationship with my adult friends. I also wondered if such people really existed. I laughed at the situations and the lines but without any real world experience.Now 30 years later, I have a very different perspective on things. I not only see myself (or aspects of myself) in each of the various characters, I find that the dialogue and relationships as presented in the film ring very true. When you are friends with other people for a long time, you do know each other well enough to be able to criticize, annoy, care about, and cherish one another the way these people do.I have also run into and had to deal with people that are essentially carbon copies of the people portrayed in the movie. I know Jack and Kate, Danny and Claudia, Nick, Ginny, and especially Anne. These people are real - not just characters written into a screenplay. They live in my town. Their fears, dreams, and neuroses are all familiar.Alan Alda was able to capture authentic portrayals of people by an outstanding cast. And while all movies are a distillation of sorts of character types, the individuals in this film seem particularly authentic to me.30 years later, I find this still to be a terrific movie. It is timeless in its message, and the emotions (humor, sympathy, anger) I experience come from a genuine understanding of and kinship with these people and their situations.

ajmcgill I've seen this movie every year at least once or twice since 1981. It's one of those great films to cuddle up with your dog, some popcorn and a blanket and enjoy. It's taken me from the age of 21 to 46. Not many movies are sweet and funny for 25 years.The great part is that it not only tells the story of the "four seasons" of the couples' relationships, it also tells the story of the "four seasons" of life as typified by the daughters in college, to the older dentist and his wife. It's funny, warm, sarcastic, sweet and romantic. You can't ask for much more from a movie. And all that without relying on women with implants, explosions or gratuitous sex. And minimal amount of bad language. So minimal, my Mother even laughs at it.

mknapp-3 This movie has the honor of being one of the few movies I have gone to and absolutely hated. I walked out of the theatre way back in 1981 when this turkey was released. I did try to like it, and most of the persons in the theatre seemed to be loving it. However, for me, it was falsely and sticky-sweet sentimental, irritating and overly pushy in its message. I have never been an Alan Alda fan, and this movie sealed his fate as far as I was concerned. I would imagine this picture has not aged well over time, and while not the worst movie ever made about friendship and relationships, I would recommend watching reruns of "Friends" while eating 5 lbs of pure fudge. That would be less punishing than one showing of "The Four Seasons." Diabetics beware...

moonspinner55 Three couples--best friends--are seen on four trips together during the course of a year. 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). The film isn't whiny, but it has shapeless scenes that are overdrawn--and the longer they go, the more rambling they become. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. He wants to create a mess, analyze the mess, and then throw up his hands and say "that's the way life is!" But this reality of his is plastic-coated, with TV-ready dialogue, and while he's an amiable filmmaker, he's never a self-satisfied one. **1/2 from ****