Parents' Guide to The Four Seasons

Like Jack, played by writer-director Alan Alda, The Four Seasons often uses ten words where one will do. Alda's is filmmaking of the over-explainer. Scenes go on two or three times longer than necessary. Alda, despite sentiments and intentions in the right place, never permits the audience to discover or work things out on their own. It's as if we are in the hands of someone who is certain he knows better, about everything, a lot like Alda's character.

For that reason, the film devolves into long-winded obviousness. As each next season's vacation begins, we sit through long minutes of montage to document the weather accompanied by the appropriate Vivaldi Four Seasons movement. Snow on the ground, ducklings leaving tiny snow tracks, leafless trees, and on and on it goes. We get it, it's winter. Even though each cast member does as good a job as possible with the material, everything feels forced. Bottled-up Jack is encouraged to let his anger out, so he breaks into an unconvincing rant while he throws crockery and vandalizes a hotel lodge. When a middle-aged lawyer, dentist, and insurance salesman want to show they are youthful and spontaneous, they jump out of a boat with their clothes on, which feels even more forced and cringeworthy. Like their actions, the people never seem real, nor do the relationships.