A Change of Seasons

Trailer—A Change of Seasons

How can two future Oscar winners star in a movie and have zero chemistry? Try a hackneyed plot, pedestrian direction with self-important pretentious, a grandiose score, and pointless dialogue. The cinematography is excellent, though, and the supporting cast, especially TV-veteran Edward Winter (best performance in film) is surprisingly robust, considering the material (EXCEPT Bo Derek, or course, whose notoriety from 10 is one of the reasons this was rushed to the big screen prematurely.

This is the most pointless, tedious, unbelievably dull and ridiculous film that I have ever seen. The most annoying thing is the fact that you can still tell Anthony Hopkins is a good actor!! It's so bad that I have ran out of things to say and must simply fill the space............

I loved this film when I saw it on the big screen as a teenager, and I loved it even more when I saw it again yesterday. We watch characters developing in a crucial situation - some of them more, some of them less. And at the end of the day we are surprised who does (more) and who doesn't (or does less). What else can we hope for when going to the movies - except the assets of Miss Derek?

Quirky, thoroughly offbeat erotic comedy is ultimately worth seeing, despite its talkiness and its occasionally stagy direction. It sure deals with some serious subjects in a less-than-plausible way (the characters are way too calm and civilized), but its gentle eccentricity, and the appealing performances by the entire cast (Bo Derek is stunning!), leave you with a nice impression. Fair film.

I thought at the time that this movie was slapped together to take advantage of the popularity of Bo Derek. Since she is topless during the credits, there is no real point in staying for the movie itself. I bet Shirley McLean felt the same way. She doesn't seem to care for the movie any more than I did. Anthony Hopkins was nobody in particular back then and did nothing to help his career. Ed Winter, pardon any mispelling, was known for being Col Flag on MASH. He's still known for that, if even for that. Everyone ends this movie being happy except Anthony Hopkins, who wanted to keep his options open. The audience is happy because they can go home if they haven't already left. I stayed because I thought it had to get better. I was very naive.

Anthony Hopkins plays a University professor engaged in an affair with a young student(Bo Derek, the perfectly cast "10"). His wife(played by Shirley MacLaine)finds out about it, but rather than divorce him, instead has an affair of her own with a young carpenter who just so happens to be doing work in their home. Hopkins is none to pleased by this, yet the four of them nonetheless go on a skiing trip together at their vacation cabin, where relationships will come to a head, since their college age daughter also arrives with her boyfriend... Good actors cannot do much with such mundane material. Its attempts to be "modern" about the morality of affairs is awkward and unconvincing, and the film is mostly dreary and unsatisfying, though Bo Derek lights up every scene she is in(especially in the hot tub!)

It is sad that a film with good actor/actress as Hopkins and MacLaine did not perform well as one may expect. They were husband and wife, the first one a professor who falls in love with one of his girl- students. He simply informed his wife of this event as if nothing would happen, but this was a mistake. His wife decided to have a young lover, and all four informed went together to the mountain in holidays!!! Only in films this phenomenon can be seen. Then their daughter is also coming to the mountain with his boy-friend and his future father-in- law, who immediately falls in love with the mother of his future daughter-in-law. I think that sometimes the director wanted to make the film more comic because as a drama it was lost. The final result is not the best.

Advertised as a wacky marital sex romp (with allusions to wife-swapping), this Erich Segal script surprises by being a mostly sobering look at a marriage between two middle-agers (Shirley MacLaine and Anthony Hopkins) which has faltered and can't really be rectified. Released alongside a spate of similar middle-age-crazy comedy-dramas (including MacLaine's "Loving Couples", which she made back-to-back with "Seasons"), this one has the added appeal of seeing serious-minded Hopkins romancing Bo Derek (fresh off her triumph in "10" and usually out of her clothes). The writing is often achingly 'cute', with hardly a wink to the audience to let us know co-writer Segal is in on the joke. However, the more thoughtful moments (integrated unobtrusively by director Richard Lang) offer some insight into what breaks up a marital union, and both MacLaine and Hopkins have strong scenes. ** from ****