Reeling Backward: The Four Seasons (1981)

Alan Alda leads a fine cast both in front of and behind the camera in this appealing, serious look at middle-aged friendships.

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Alan Alda was as big a television star as there was in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, including directing two TV movies — so the only logical place to go next (at that time) was feature films. “The Four Seasons,” which he also wrote and directed, was a critical and commercial hit but he never really broke out as a movie auteur, though he continued to garner respect as an actor.

“The Four Seasons” has something of a television feel to it, with its small circle of characters and confined locations. As you can guess from the title, taken from Vivaldi’s famed four concerti that also form the bulk of the film’s soundtrack, it takes place over just a day or two in each of the seasons, centering on three middle-aged New York City couples who always vacation together.

Personally, I can’t hear Vivaldi in a movie without thinking the filmmakers are saying to the audience, “These folks are fancy and well-to-do!” Certainly our first look, which begins with a spring excursion to a New England lodge, doesn’t dissuade us from this impression.

Jack (Alda) is a lawyer and mediator who prides himself on always being rational and analytical. His wife, Kate (Carol Burnett) is an editor for Fortune magazine, spunky and caustic. She tries to throw work to Anne (Sandy Dennis), a skilled photographer, but she seems hedged in by a lack of ambition and confidence, having just wrapped a three-year project shooting vegetables. Her husband is Nick, (Len Cariou), a brash insurance salesman who prefers to refer to himself as an estate planner.

Danny (Jack Weston) is older than the rest, a dentist who’s a gourmand and something of a compulsive personality, meticulous keeping track of the finances for their trips and who owes what. His wife, Claudia (Rita Moreno), is an accomplished painter and firebrand, always freely sharing her scathing opinions and then defending her pronunciation of them with the exclamation, “I’m Italian!”

The first season ends with Nick confiding in Jack that he intends to divorce Anne, saying they’re both deeply unhappy but only he has the bravery to admit it. By the time the spring rolls around, the group has moved to a sailboat cruise in the Caribbean, but Anne has been replaced by Ginny (Bess Armstrong), a beautiful but somewhat naive blonde about 15 years younger than them.

(Their ages appear to be 40s, with the only ones given for certain are Nick at 43, and Danny who at one point says he’s 10 years older than Jack. This roughly tracks with the actors’ actual ages.)

The mood of the group shifts dramatically, with the other four resentful of Nick, particularly the women, for dumping Anne for a hot young thing. Nick seems oblivious of their ire, completely smitten with Ginny, giving her daily gifts on their trip including a ring hidden in a clam shell. (Though he does marry her by the end of the movie, this would not appear to be an engagement ring as there’s no big to-do at its reveal.)

Danny, who had talked loquaciously of his love for the others and their abiding friendship in the spring, becomes peevish and paranoid. Kate believes that Jack secretly pines to follow in Nick’s footsteps, even though their relationship seems founded on a solid base of affection, interrupted by a few squabbles.

Claudia, for her part, admits that she genuinely likes Ginny, and she’s jealous of the attention Nick dotes on her — not to mention their constant, loud lovemaking aboard the cramped belowdecks accommodations. The group protests their shock when they wake early to find Nick and Ginny skinny-dipping, but Claudia eventually convinces the ample-girded Danny to take the plunge.

In the fall they visit the college where Nick and Anne’s daughter, Lisa, and Kate and Jack’s kid, Beth, are both attending freshman year. They’re played by Alda’s real-life daughters, Beatrice and Elizabeth Alda, respectively. The girls were fast friends in high school but have become estranged, owing mostly to Lisa’s descent into depression as a result of her parents’ divorce.

To complicate matters, Anne shows up uninvited, even going so far as to take Nick’s hotel reservation as his “Mrs.” This leads to a hashing out of the older women’s relationship, with Anne confessing that she feels expelled from the group, but also is beginning to come to terms with her predicament and even embracing this newfound freedom. The trio resolves to do better at maintaining their ties of friendship, and we leave Anne with the feeling she’ll be better off in the long run.

The winter episode is the “hashing out of differences” during a skiing trip. It seems clear this will be the make-or-break of whether they stay together as a sextet or go their own ways. Ginny, having spent three seasons now as a doormat, finally asserts herself. Meanwhile, Danny confesses the extent of his paranoia and fear of death — even mentioning how much he loathes his elastic underwear.

And Jack, having always portrayed himself as the calm, unemotional ones, has a hissyfit when the rest gang up on him for his denunciation of Nick’s new marriage and starting a new family, as Ginny is revealed to be pregnant.

Considering this movie is Alda’s baby, I was impressed that he did not write himself the biggest or showiest part. Really, Burnett as Kate gets the best lines and biggest laughs. Jack is the sort of well-meaning guy with a bit of a George Constanza streak: everyone simply must like him.

I was most interested in the depiction of Nick, and how we’re supposed to feel about him. He hadn’t met Ginny when he resolved to leave Anne, so his assertion that the joy had fled from their marriage seems real. He makes quite a pig of himself in the summer and fall sections, clearly puffed up by having such a beautiful young thing on his arm.

And Nick’s attempt to cheer up his daughter seems less like fatherly encouragement than his impatient demand that everyone just accept his new situation and move on as quickly as he has. Still, he’s not an outright heel or anything and we’re left with a sense of ambivalence, since the split seems to have really improved the lives of both himself and Anne. And he really does everything in his power to make Ginny happy.

Interestingly, for being such a prosperous group — certainly wealthy enough to rent a fancy sloop and eat all sorts of exotic dishes — they only ever bring one car wherever they go, piling in three- or even four-wide across the bench seats of Jack’s station wagon, or later Danny’s new Mercedes sedan.

There was actually a short-lived television adaptation of this movie, which Alda exec-produced — the TV star making a full circle.

“The Four Season” isn’t a great movie, and sometimes feels more like an actors’ studio workshop than a real narrative — lots of talking, people flinging around big emotions, and every actor gets at least one big speech to deliver.

Still, I admired the throughline of a film devoted to a subject movies rarely explore, even 40 years ago: the nature of mature adult relationships and how they can evolve, or not, over time.

I can only imagine the studio honchos’ thrills when being pitched this project: “We’ll have a bunch of graying married couples! Going places and eating! Talking about their feelings!” But it all worked out, the movie grossing $50 million off a $6.5 million budget.

It can be hard for a young person, particularly someone in college or their roaming 20s, to realize how much work it takes to keep friendships going as you get busy with marriage, careers and kids. The people you thought would always be right next to you wander away… but others sidle up and take their place.