--- title: "The Four Seasons" year: 1981 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-four-seasons-1981" fi1m_id: "the-four-seasons-1981" imdb_id: "tt0082405" tmdb_id: 25113 wikidata_id: "Q1757188" fi1m_score: 65 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-04T17:24:00.261698+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T17:24:01.855715+00:00" region: "CA" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Four Seasons (1981) Directed by Alan Alda · 1h 47m · Comedy, Drama, Romance ## Identity The Four Seasons - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-four-seasons-1981 - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-four-seasons-1981 - **IMDb ID:** tt0082405 - **TMDB ID:** 25113 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1757188 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082405/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/25113, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1757188 **Fi1m score: 65** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Six old friends, four holidays, one divorce, and Vivaldi reminding you what month it is every ten minutes > Alan Alda writes, directs and stars in a comedy about middle-aged friends that is warmer and more truthful than its reputation, and that keeps letting its author win the argument. Decent company for an evening, with Sandy Dennis and Jack Weston the reasons to stay. ## Synopsis Three couples who have holidayed together for years meet for a spring weekend in the country. Jack Burroughs (Alan Alda), who likes to explain things, and his wife Kate (Carol Burnett) are the steady pair. Danny Zimmer (Jack Weston), convinced he is dying of something, bickers with Claudia (Rita Moreno), who gives as good as she gets. Nick Callan (Len Cariou) and Anne (Sandy Dennis), who takes close-up photographs of vegetables, are the quiet ones, until Nick takes Jack aside on a walk and tells him he is leaving his wife. By summer the group is on a chartered sailboat, and Nick has brought Ginny (Bess Armstrong), who is young, cheerful and in a bikini. The others have to decide whether the friendship survives the new arrangement, and what they owe the woman who is no longer invited. ## Review Alan Alda’s [*The Four Seasons*](https://film.one/tv/the-four-seasons) runs 107 minutes and is built on a tidy idea: three couples who have taken their holidays together for years are followed through one spring, summer, autumn and winter, with a divorce dropped into the first of them. Alda writes it, directs it and plays Jack, the one who talks. The film wants to be about what friendship costs once people stop being the people you first liked, and for long stretches it manages it. The spring section is the best. Nick (Len Cariou) tells Jack on a walk that he is leaving Anne, and the news goes round the house like a smell nobody will mention. Sandy Dennis plays Anne as a woman who has already half guessed and has decided to photograph vegetables rather than ask. She has one scene at a table, holding her prints and explaining what she sees in a courgette, and it moved us more than we expected a joke about vegetables to; Dennis lets you see a marriage ending in the way she holds the paper. The film is never quite that good again, and it knows it, because it leaves her behind. What replaces her is Ginny (Bess Armstrong) on a boat, and a comedy of middle-aged bodies. Jane Greenwood dresses Armstrong in next to nothing and everyone else in cover-ups and hats, and the gag does most of its work before anyone speaks. Jack Weston’s Danny, who takes his own pulse and reads the labels on other people’s medicines, is the funniest thing here. We laughed at him a good deal, and then noticed that Weston was also playing a frightened man, which is why the laughs last. Rita Moreno’s Claudia is the only one who says what everyone is thinking, and Moreno says it fast and with pleasure. Carol Burnett, playing straight, holds the whole group together and gets fewer lines than she deserves. The trouble is Jack. Alda has written himself the part of the man who is always reasonable, and the film agrees with him about it. Kate is allowed one speech telling him he lectures people and that it is tiring, and it is a good speech, and then the next scene lets him be right anyway. Every row in the film resolves because Jack explains it. A comedy about six people needs at least one of them to be wrong about himself, and the author is not volunteering. The craft is plain and mostly sound. Victor J. Kemper shoots each season in its own light, hard white sun on the water, brown leaves on a college lawn, a snowbound house at dusk, and resists making any of it pretty for its own sake. Michael Economou cuts the four sections as four separate short films, with the dialogue scenes allowed to run long enough for the actors to breathe. Jack T. Collis’s interiors are the kind of rented holiday houses where nothing matches, which is right. The one serious misjudgement is the music: Vivaldi’s concertos are poured over every change of season as if we might otherwise miss it, and by autumn we were wincing when the strings started. The film’s early notices found it brisk but soft, and we half agree. Alda’s dialogue moves quickly and lands its jokes, but it rarely draws blood; nobody says anything to a friend that could not be taken back over breakfast. Against the group-of-friends films that followed in the decade, this one is kinder and less interested in its own cleverness, which is a virtue until you want it to go further and it will not. The autumn section, at the daughters’ college, has a scene between Nick and Lisa (Beatrice Alda) that comes close, and then changes the subject. The winter brings matters to a head in ways we will not describe. Watch it at home with somebody you have been on holiday with, and expect to argue afterwards about which of the six you are. Our money says you will not pick Jack, and that the film would be better if it had not either. *Fi1m score 65, published 4 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is The Four Seasons worth watching?** *The Four Seasons* is worth an evening for anyone who likes watching old friends talk, and we scored it 65. Sandy Dennis and Jack Weston are the reasons to stay, and the spring section is the best of the four. The flaw is Alan Alda's Jack, who is always right, and a comedy about six people needs one of them to be wrong about himself. **How long is The Four Seasons, and what is it rated?** *The Four Seasons* runs 1h 47m. It is a comedy and drama film. **Where can I watch The Four Seasons in Canada?** *The Four Seasons* is streaming on Netflix in Canada. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does The Four Seasons compare to The Big Chill?** *The Four Seasons* is the kinder and more modest of the two, while [*The Big Chill*](https://film.one/film/the-big-chill) is sharper scene by scene and better written on what time does to people. Neither film draws blood; both let their friends off lightly. Alda's is the one to pick if you want warmth and Sandy Dennis; Kasdan's if you want the quicker dialogue and the larger ensemble. **What should I watch after The Four Seasons?** After *The Four Seasons*, try [*The Big Chill*](https://film.one/film/the-big-chill) (1983, Fi1m 67): Old friends, one funeral, a weekend of talk; sharper on what time does to people. Then [*The Decline of the American Empire*](https://film.one/film/the-decline-of-the-american-empire) (1986, Fi1m 72): Quebec academics cook dinner and confess; the dialogue bites where Alda’s pats; and [*Another Year*](https://film.one/film/another-year) (2010, Fi1m 87): Mike Leigh follows a steady couple and their unhappy friends through four seasons. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Time Out**, FD (50/100, inferred): The review gives a mixed verdict on the film. It praises the dialogue’s briskness but says it lacks the sharpness of Alda’s earlier script. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-four-seasons) ## Details - **Director:** Alan Alda - **Director:** Alan Alda - **Writer:** Alan Alda - **Cinematography:** Victor J. Kemper - **Editor:** Michael Economou - **Production design:** Jack T. Collis - **Costume design:** Jane Greenwood - **Producer:** Martin Bregman - **Cast:** Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs; Carol Burnett as Kate Burroughs; Len Cariou as Nick Callan; Sandy Dennis as Anne Callan; Rita Moreno as Claudia Zimmer; Jack Weston as Danny Zimmer; Bess Armstrong as Ginny Newley (Callan); Elizabeth Alda as Beth Burroughs - **Runtime:** 1h 47m - **First release (the US):** 22 May 1981 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama, Romance - **Also in:** [Golden Globe Best Musical or Comedy winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-comedy.md) (Nominee, 1981) - **Box office:** $50 million ## Where to watch in Canada - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-10-04.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Big Chill* (1983), Fi1m 67: Old friends, one funeral, a weekend of talk; sharper on what time does to people — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-big-chill.md) - *The Decline of the American Empire* (1986), Fi1m 72: Quebec academics cook dinner and confess; the dialogue bites where Alda’s pats — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-decline-of-the-american-empire.md) - *Scenes from a Marriage* (1973): Bergman’s divorce in close-up, for anyone who wanted more of Anne’s story - *Another Year* (2010), Fi1m 87: Mike Leigh follows a steady couple and their unhappy friends through four seasons — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/another-year.md) - *Force Majeure* (2014), Fi1m 84: A ski holiday, an avalanche, and a marriage that cannot stop discussing it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/force-majeure.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-four-seasons-1981