The monotony of marriage manifests itself through a potpourri of boring actions, usually there is nothing wrong with your marriage, yet, often times, there is nothing right with your marriage either!! Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn play two people who were brought together by a happenstance encounter. Dining alone became dining together, and the rest, as they say, is history. Everything between the two of them seemed to click!! Eventually, their elongated diatribes of discontentment garnered some sort of precariously unexplained kindred spirit. Both characters' penchant for conventionalism made them reluctant to establish extra marital relations. Bottom line, the two of them may as well have flipped a coin, heads, they do it (In a manner of speaking). This is where the plot of the movie is established!! Here was the attraction, at some point, your married life of the kids, the mortgage, and the dog, must be given a reprieve for just one weekend out of an entire year. At this point, it is time to pontificate, placate, theorize, ruminate, and, most importantly, it is also a time to listen to each other. Americans call it infidelity, most archaic nations call it a mistress!! The favorite euphemism for this situation is surrogacy!! Now enters, the comprehension of hang ups, afflictions, and overall resilience which both these characters possess!!! This little endeavor of marital indiscretion was for purposes of emotional nurturing, as well as a reaffirmation of each other's necessary fortitude. Both Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn felt so justified for their actions that even mere mention of recrimination for these actions was categorized as utterly ludicrous!! In this affair, everything else was preempted by a bittersweet stoicism that mandated that this theatrical adultery linger on for 27 years and counting!! "Same Time Next Year" was originally a stage play, the dialog attempted to be witty, it did not fail, however, it was not filled with razor sharp wit either!! Movies which started out as stage plays are intriguing to me because they itemize the expressions of their characters far more effectively than a typical high budget Hollywood film!! The snippets of pop culture throughout the different decades of this film signified the change in attitudes the main characters (Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn) experienced!! The most significant concept to emanate from this movie was that 99% of your life was about doing the right thing!! The other one percent is reserved for you, and the type of person you are!! You are permitted to do one wrong thing to make all of the right things better, if you know what I mean!! In essence, the amelioration for marital infidelity in this movie served as a subterfuge for white collar psycho analysis!! Richard Mulligan directs this film, he is best known for "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Inside Daisy Clover" is my favorite Mulligan film!! The cinematography to the film "Same Time Next Year" was sensational!! The theme song "The Last Time I Felt Like This" was on the charts forever back in 1978!! My overall assessment of "Same Time Next Year" is that it was successfully unique!! Very good movie, I liked it very much!!
Review of Same Time, Next Year
