Diractors is an ongoing series in which Hassle writer Jack Draper examines films, new and old, whose directors are better known for their work in front of the camera.
Earlier this year, Diractors looked at Delphine Seyrig’s Be Pretty and Shut Up. In that piece, I mention my long-held Big Hot Take that remakes aren’t always a bad idea in the grand scheme of Hollywood laziness. Specifically fitting to Be Pretty and Shut Up, Seyrig has just tapped into the public secrets that so many women face, and the content of the conversations felt possible to have happen in 2025. Now, we see an actual remake of a diractor’s work, with Tina Fey’s Netflix reimagining of Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons. Alda’s original 1981 dramedy looks ripe enough to give a new coat of paint, as the struggles faced between the three couples are what’s to be dealt with during any marriage with comfort and longevity. Yet, the Boomer anxieties are rock solid in the early eighties America, and Alda is perfectly fine with being their mouthpiece.
Six couples (Alda and Carol Burnett, Len Cariou and Sandy Dennis, and Jack Weston and Rita Moreno) are long-time friends who have been nurtured for quite some time. We follow the friend group through a year’s worth of vacations– one in each season– to mark how the dynamics shift or stagnate. On a walk, Nick (Cariou) tells Jack (Alda) that he is leaving his wife Anne (Dennis) for the younger Ginny (Bess Armstrong, which rules as a My So Called Life fan). This creates cracks which change how easy their time together has been with all the “live, laugh, love” mantra that they exemplify. It’s a great bit of drama, as Nick’s separation and selfishness has a ripple effect on the others that forces them to confront how easy it is to break their marriages that seem so loving on the surface. Then, as the seasons change, there’s an attempt to accept Ginny as a part of the group, yet it only brings out their flaws and repressed judgment– only to end with Jack being hysterical about the meaning of friendship and a certain love that is there without honesty.
The Four Seasons is familiar territory for Alda, even during the time of M*A*S*H. Contemporaneous reviews made comparisons to Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer, which is to say, it’s a quiet drama about adult issues with strong direction. While those comps make perfect sense, as huge hits at the box office and taking the best picture crown, The Four Seasons really does feel like it’s shooting for something more modest. Probably just due to the “classic” status that makes Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer look more definitive about what they’re about, while The Four Seasons is a time capsule of one of the first major generations to reckon with these ideas. These ideas are intelligently explored by Alda’s screenplay. Six characters are a lot to be equally cared for here alone with someone’s first movie, which Alda fails at. Boomers who aren’t the ultra-wealthy but are starting to realize that friends are no different than family, in that there are some resentments that you just coexist with to continue to love each other.
Diractor Alan Alda seems to be someone who never got to that next gear as a filmmaker. His performance is great here, giving so much power to the scenes (especially with Burnett), but you almost wish he wasn’t the lead of the movie to give the other couples more humanity. He was already directing M*A*S*H, and as he directed more movies after the show, how beloved the show was gave him creative control over the movies he wanted to make. Of the movies which followed (Sweet Liberty in 1986, A New Life in 1988, and Betsy’s Wedding in 1990), Alda continued on to write and star in his own movies along with directing, clearly taking a page from Woody Allen. Alda is a national treasure and a pleasure to watch in this film, but I have zero relationship to M*A*S*H, which is amusing considering its status as a major cultural phenomenon– yet without it, you’d wonder if Alda would have the same ease with a directing career.
As for the new TV show, it is not surprising that a show created by three women in 2025 is more nuanced than the movie written by a man in 1981 when it comes to depicting the (Sandy Dennis character, who barely registers in the movie but becomes an unexpected highlight of the series. Keri Kenney-Silver’s performance makes the men in the show funnier and more engaging. It is the exact kind of film that major studios no longer screen, and it is also the exact vintage of film that Netflix does not bother to license. The Four Seasons, however, was a prime contender for a remake.
The Four Seasons
1981
dir. Alan Alda
107 min.
Currently streaming on Netflix
