Same Time, Next Year (1978)

(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.

I haven't seen the play that this film is based on, though I do see how it could work as a play. The film adaptation does perhaps not particularly add something specific to the media of film, but I'm not sure the piece needed it or called for it... it could very well have served as nothing but a distraction. The basic setup is fairly simple... but simplicity is only a bad thing when the production calls for something else. The themes and characters are quite complex, and the film is compelling. The story is interesting and well-told, and it's paced right. The acting is downright impeccable in parts, and never bad. The portrayals are amazing, and the parts fleshed out and full. The writing is excellent. Deep, profound and interesting. The development, throughout this production, leaves immeasurably little to be desired. The leads are somehow appealing, and you do manage to forgive them for the obviously morally wrong activity they engage in. The costumes are also nicely done, as is the make-up, if the latter could perhaps be done better today. One thing that should be noted is that children should not watch this. The dialog, whilst magnificent, does hold some language that isn't fit for younger ears. It is a film for more mature audiences, in any case. I recommend this for anyone who isn't too young, and particularly couples. 7/10

Like Gene Hackman, Ellen Burstyn is one of those actors whose outward normalcy and everywoman demeanor make her deceptively versatile acting skills resonate even more. Still one of our most respected actresses, she had quite a run of quality leading roles in the 1970's, and this time-spanning 1978 comedy was one of the few purely romantic parts she played. That's because she became enough of a box office draw to be able to repeat her Broadway role here unlike 1987's 84 Charing Cross Road which Anne Bancroft essayed in her place. Burstyn is paired here with Alan Alda, then riding high from the long-running M*A*S*H series, playing a couple, Doris and George, happily married to other spouses with six children between them. They meet by chance at a Mendocino B&B during a weekend in 1951, and the movie tracks the affair that develops between them once a year in the same inn over the next quarter-century. Picking up on their illicit activities every five to six years, their trysts become statements of their times and also of their evolving marriages.The movie is a deliberately contrived set-up made up almost entirely of dialogue between the two principals and patched together by familiar, Life Magazine photo images of the intervening years. Bernard Slade adapted his own hit play for the screen, and some of the stagebound strain shows in the interplay. Director Robert Mulligan, who made To Kill a Mockingbird and Love With the Proper Stranger in the early 1960's, shows a sure hand with the actors, but there is little of cinematic interest here. Already well into her forties, Burstyn is still convincing in showing the evolution from a naïve 24-year-old Oakland housewife to a fifty-year old retiree with aplomb. It's the direct sincerity of her characterization and the minor changes in voice and manner she employs to show Doris' growing maturity. Even though the camera belies her years early on, it's still a masterful turn. Saddled with the more contrived and exaggerated lines, Alda is less impressive as George relying more on his recognizable Hawkeye mannerisms except in the most dramatic episode set during the Vietnam War years. The postcard-perfect Mendocino setting and treacly Marvin Hamlisch music supplement the aura of romanticism necessary for this type of confection. The 2004 DVD has no extras.

An adulterous couple meet at the same cabin every year for a weekend tryst (we see them every five years), while the world's fashions, morals and mores change around them. Ellen Burstyn repeats her Broadway triumph on the screen, and garnered an Oscar nod for Best Actress; though she's a terrific actress, this role doesn't allow Burstyn any real personality: it's all processed, from the costume and wig changes down to the mannerisms, from youthful girlishness to flip, knowing womanhood. Opposite her, Alan Alda is serviceable though rather uncomfortable, flailing away at little sitcom routines like a fish caught in a net. The sex talk between the two is queasy (despite being played for big laughs), halting the movie in its tracks. There's a love ballad that plays prior to every new chapter, and black-and-white stills representing the passing years, and this is all fine until we get back to that damn cabin. Playwright/screenwriter Bernard Slade doesn't write for the ages, he's too impatient and wants to wring laughter out of every set-up. Therefore, the film is sniggering instead of intuitive, and artificially sentimental instead of human. ** from ****