Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, and friends boat, ski, stir fry, and shout their way into middle age.
- Setting aside questions of the privilege and bourgeoisie comfort that frames the story, The Four Seasons is an interesting look at middle age and how relationships grow, wither, sour, and evolve.
- It is worth a watch, if only for a glimpse of that far-off, bright-eyed world in which a comedy of manners could be the 9th-highest grossing movie for an entire calendar year.
- I have always disliked when characters in movies make jokes that are clearly intended as jokes within the story but then no other character laughs or even acknowledges the joke. My new dislike is when every character in a scene laughs at every quip with maniacal, stupid, desperate abandon. The Four Seasons does this in its first, second, and fourth chapters.
- I’m of an age where it is impossible to dislike Alan Alda. But, lord, does his character make it hard.
- This movie is fascinating because its characters seemingly have no interest in movies, television, novels, music, or other art. Their passions seem to lie only in food and in spending long weekends in cabins cooking food and looking into each other’s eyes. Most of the scenes felt like they were one glass of wine away from a key party.
5 Thoughts on… is a quick dispatch on movies that might not otherwise be covered in our normal features.