A Change of Seasons (1980)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Instant Favorite.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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!)

This picture opened in theaters on December 1 1980 starring Shirley MacLane as Karin Evans, Anthony Hopkins as Adam Evans and the young and gorgeous Bo Derek as Lindsay Rutledge. This movie was about Adam Evans who's a professor at the local college is over 40 years old and has had affairs with some of his students. Along comes Lindsay Rutledge who's one off Evans students and the one he's having an affair with now. One night at a friends house the subject of affair came between Adam, Karin and there friends. The subject didn't bother there friends but it bother Karin. So on there way home Karin asked Adam if he indeed was having an affair and he said yes. Adam and Karin have been married for some 21 years and to Karin that means something, but to Adam it really means nothing. Karin stayed home raised the children and kept his house clean and washed his clothes which in these times it hard to find a good woman that would do all those things. Adam is planning to take a trip to Montreal and Karin tells Adam she wants to go and he tells her not this time. Instead of taking Karin, Adam takes Lindsay instead. While Adam is in Montreal, Karin is home by herself when she hears noises coming from the kitchen. So she goes down to investigate and finds a strange man in her kitchen feeding birds a peanut butter sandwich. The young mans named is Pete and his there to build a book shelf for Adam Evans. When questioned by Karin, Pete pulls out a slip of paper to show Karin that work is for real. Karin said okay and tells Pete that she's going to bed and then she asks Pete if he wants to come along. When Adam comes back from Montreal and walks into his house it looks like a storm hit and that's not all he found. Does Adam go with Lindsay or is she just a fling? What else did Adam find in his house? What does Karin do to Adam if anything? I love this movie because it just goes to show you that men can be real ***holes. Adam had a great home life, a great job and a beautiful wife but that wasn't enough. He wants more and he got more and Adam got what he deserved. As far as Bo Derek, she was fantastic. The way she started the film by coming up out of that water was beautiful. The shower scene was even better and I especially liked her part in the ending. I no some people didn't give this movie very go rating, however despite there review I give this movie 10 weasel stars for Bo Derek acting and beauty.

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 ****

This film was well written by Erich Segal of Love Story fame and by the producer, Martin Ransohoff. It is a comedic farce, but it is also touching and poignant and the characters are all quite likable and well developed. One reviewer didn't see the point to it all, but the point was that life does not end with marriage and middle age. We all have our temptations and we do the best we can with the complexities that confront us. No character in this film meant harm to any other and the result of each person's actions were not to be tidied up with easy answers. The consequences of the decisions made by the husband, the wife, the husbands girlfriend, the wife's boyfriend, and the girlfriend's father were left for us to ponder. Only the daughter, with the idealism of youth, could blissfully move on without considering what bends in the road she might face in her future. Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLane and the other cast members do a fine job with the material. I liked it very much and strongly recommend it.