The Four Seasons

The dialogue written by Alda for his directorial debut has the cut and thrust, but not the edge, of his script for The Seduction of Joe Tynan. Three married couples, friends of long standing, have their complacency challenged when one of their number replaces his wife with a younger woman. The camerawork is unadventurous (the only variation on static observation of the characters being the nature footage signalling the seasonal changes), but the performances Alda elicits from his co-actors almost justifies this. Within the characterisations, most of the fears and foibles of middle class, middle-aged America may be found. Amusing and worth a look.