The Four Seasons

Friendship is the topic in this film about three middle-aged couples who find their loyalties to one another and their marriages tested. Alda and Burnett play the "thoughtful" couple at the center of the sextet, which spends a year taking vacations together in each of the four seasons. Weston and Moreno provide comic relief; Cariou and Dennis play the star-crossed twosome whose marriage falls apart, after which he marries a younger woman (Armstrong).

Much of the film's first half is sprightly and amusing, but the move toward serious drama later, and then a slapstick finale, is a bit hard to take. Alda's debut as a director is nevertheless impressive, even if he ...