(The movie is based on the successful eponymous Broadway play (1400+ performances, 1975-78) by Bernard Slade who also wrote the screen play.)
In 1951, Doris (Ellen Burstyn), a housewife about to go to a religious retreat the next day, and George (Alan Alda), a married CPA doing a client's taxes, happen to meet one evening at dinner while lodging in the same California seaside motel that's near both their venues.
They have instant rapport and both are surprised when they wake up in bed with each other the next morning. Each is happily married with children and neither has a desire to change that. But they're both so gratified by their harmonious, empathic relationship (and physical activity) that they decide to meet again at the same time, same place, next year.
Almost all the action takes place in the same motel suite (easily visualized as being the set transferred from the stage play). We look in on their meetings every 5-6 years and their transformations over time: (George's increased wealth, his switch from being a liberal Democrat to conservative Republican, loss of a son, going into psychoanalysis, abandoning his quest for more money and property || Doris completing her HS and eventually graduating from college, a stint as a hippie, becoming a successful, financially secure businesswoman, etc.). Each serves as marriage counselor to the other at various points in their relationship. Each transformation by one person requires adjustments in their relation. Their relationship has some bumps (e.g., impotence/ED, pregnancy) to be conquered and amusing dialog. The ending didn't surprise my companion as much as it did me.
IMO, this is a fairy tale that's probably served as a wishful fantasy to some travelers making out of town, overnight business trips as well as recurring nightmares to some partners left behind. But IMO the realities of actual relationships are that very, VERY few of any such extra-curricular relationships that are started would ever go so smoothly.
The make-up artists did great jobs in varying the age appearances of Alda and Burstyn at the time this movie was made (he 42, she 46). The narrative calls for them to be near their early 30s at the time we first meet them, then following them as they age over the next almost 30 years.
In 1951, Doris (Ellen Burstyn), a housewife about to go to a religious retreat the next day, and George (Alan Alda), a married CPA doing a client's taxes, happen to meet one evening at dinner while lodging in the same California seaside motel that's near both their venues.
They have instant rapport and both are surprised when they wake up in bed with each other the next morning. Each is happily married with children and neither has a desire to change that. But they're both so gratified by their harmonious, empathic relationship (and physical activity) that they decide to meet again at the same time, same place, next year.
Almost all the action takes place in the same motel suite (easily visualized as being the set transferred from the stage play). We look in on their meetings every 5-6 years and their transformations over time: (George's increased wealth, his switch from being a liberal Democrat to conservative Republican, loss of a son, going into psychoanalysis, abandoning his quest for more money and property || Doris completing her HS and eventually graduating from college, a stint as a hippie, becoming a successful, financially secure businesswoman, etc.). Each serves as marriage counselor to the other at various points in their relationship. Each transformation by one person requires adjustments in their relation. Their relationship has some bumps (e.g., impotence/ED, pregnancy) to be conquered and amusing dialog. The ending didn't surprise my companion as much as it did me.
IMO, this is a fairy tale that's probably served as a wishful fantasy to some travelers making out of town, overnight business trips as well as recurring nightmares to some partners left behind. But IMO the realities of actual relationships are that very, VERY few of any such extra-curricular relationships that are started would ever go so smoothly.
The make-up artists did great jobs in varying the age appearances of Alda and Burstyn at the time this movie was made (he 42, she 46). The narrative calls for them to be near their early 30s at the time we first meet them, then following them as they age over the next almost 30 years.