BEFORE: I've added a few last-minute romance-based films to next week's line-up, which brings this year's total on that topic to 28 - perfect for the month of February. Alan Alda carries over from "Same Time, Next Year" and keeps the actor linking chain alive.
THE PLOT: Three middle-aged wealthy couples take vacations together in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Along the way we are treated to mid-life, marital, parental and other crises.
AFTER: Alda's appearance is not the only reason to watch this one next - there's a thematic progression as well. In last night's film, I watched a cheating couple still keeping their affair going as they reached middle age - and tonight's film is all about three couples keeping their relationships going in middle age as well.
I talked yesterday about how "vacation time" is different from regular time - and this whole film is set in vacation time - the couples go to a cabin in upstate New York in the spring, sail a boat around the Virgin Islands in the summer, visit their kids at college in Connecticut in the fall, and take a ski trip in the wintertime. One couple does separate after the spring trip, so there's a new girlfriend in the group by the summer, and by fall she's fully integrated into the group, with the ex-wife out in the cold.
The marriages aren't perfect, nor are the friendships, and that makes this all feel pretty real - what in life is perfect, after all? Yet Hollywood spends so much time these days on light romantic comedies about finding the perfect match - but very little time detailing how to maintain those relationships after 10 or 15 years. "It's Complicated" is the only one that springs to mind, I'm sure there must be others, but probably not many.
The film did a good job of capturing the way real people talk, like when friends argue over how to divide a check in a restaurant, or when couples bicker over small nuisances, without it sounding all staged, as it did in "Same Time, Next Year". This is helped by the fact that the film isn't pushing any kind of message or political agenda, it's just meant to be a portrait of a group of friends. But it's a double-edged sword - if that's all the film is trying to be, that's all it ends up being.
In an odd way, this film has inspired me, because it sort of resembles my screenplay idea, which is cribbed from my real life, so I can't be accused of plagiarism. My story would be about a group of two young NY couples, plus two single people, who get together on the weekends in the late 80's and play role-playing games. But though they learn to function as a team in the fantasy world, when they try to do activities together in the real world, such as camping, the results are disastrous (but funny). Over the span of a few years, there are secret attractions within the group, couplings and un-couplings, which eventually fracture the group beyond repair. That's about all that I'm willing to reveal, except to say that there are elements in my head that I've not seen in any film before.
The trick is finding the time to write it - I've started it 3 or 4 times but can't get any real progress made.
Also starring Carol Burnett (last seen in "The Front Page"), Len Cariou (last seen in "Flags of Our Fathers"), Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, Sandy Dennis (last seen in "Splendor in the Grass"), Bess Armstrong (last seen in "Jaws 3-D").
RATING: 5 out of 10 crutches (the wooden ones, not the emotional ones)
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