I can't say I share the great enthusiasm others show for this essentially two-character Broadway play by Bernard Slade that seems so much like a Neil Simon piece without the constant punch lines. Perhaps it's because every line spoken by ALAN ALDA sounds as though he's delivering the kind of remark that deserves a punch line. His comedy style was always very effective, but his dramatic acting always left me cold. (Think THE MEPHISTO WALTZ).
ELLEN BURSTYN, of course, is at home with a flair for either dramatics or comedy and she's served well by the sentimental script about two adulterous couples who spend one week-end a year for 26 years in each other's company because they don't want to give up their marriages and find each other soul mates.
That's the crux of the story and it moves from year to year showing the gradual changes in their characters as time and events effect their separate lives. I just never felt the material was strong enough to support the kind of screen treatment it gets here with the opening up of the stagebound scenes doing some harm to the characterizations.
Alda plainly seems to be overacting (over-reacting might be better), and one is never sure whether he's going to break out of character and into a Neil Simon parody of one with his sometimes flippant line readings.
Personally, a film I could do without, even on a rainy day. These are two people I never could care that much about.
ELLEN BURSTYN, of course, is at home with a flair for either dramatics or comedy and she's served well by the sentimental script about two adulterous couples who spend one week-end a year for 26 years in each other's company because they don't want to give up their marriages and find each other soul mates.
That's the crux of the story and it moves from year to year showing the gradual changes in their characters as time and events effect their separate lives. I just never felt the material was strong enough to support the kind of screen treatment it gets here with the opening up of the stagebound scenes doing some harm to the characterizations.
Alda plainly seems to be overacting (over-reacting might be better), and one is never sure whether he's going to break out of character and into a Neil Simon parody of one with his sometimes flippant line readings.
Personally, a film I could do without, even on a rainy day. These are two people I never could care that much about.