SAME TIME NEXT YEAR
US, 1978, 119 minutes, Colour.
Ellen Burstyn, Alan Alda.
Directed by Robert Mulligan.
Keeping very close to its stage origins, this comedy relies successfully on its stars, themes and humanity; director Robert Mulligan always enhances his films with feeling. This comedy of a brief encounter that is repeated annually for 26 years has a lot of sharp and telling observation of marriage, love, fidelity and infidelity. A photo collage of events, personalities, issues, films shows the enormous changes in outlook and behaviour 1951-1977. Ellen Burstyn is excellent as Doris, Alan Alda, at first abrasive and tense, is very good in a less sympathetic role. Johnny Mathis and Jane Oliver sing a Marvin Hamlisch song that is used to effect for the plot development.
1. The appeal of this film? For what audience? American, universal audience? The impact on men, women? Husbands and wives? The age appeal?
2. The qualities of the stars and their styles, their interaction? Their sustaining the whole film by their presence and performances? The changes as they portrayed the two characters over the long period, illustrating the change in their lives, in American society and its influence on them?
3. How evident that the film was based on a play? The structuring of the scenes, the strength of the dialogue? The two-character interplay, the nature and dramatics of the interaction, the comedy? How well was the play opened out - the attractive coastal scenery, the motel and the outside walks? The basic scene within the hotel - the emphasis on the room for the 26 years? How confined was the film in its presentation of character and themes? The importance of the collage of photos to illustrate the passing of time, social change, political change? An effective indication of time passing and situating each scene more accurately?
4. The musical score, the importance of the theme song and its being used with its lyrics to make the meeting of Doris and George more credible? Its being played during the photo-collage for the passing of the years - and the differing styles of presenting the song? The song giving a romantic and sentimental feel for this encounter?
5. The structure of the film: the song and its use for 6stablishing the characters and the basic situation, the focus of the scenes on the encounters and the five-year periods? Audience expectations of these meetings and the changes because of time? The variations in each of the meeting sequences - age, clothes, pregnancy, language, trends and fads? The decor of the hotel over the years? The importance of the contents of the photo-collage - the social background of the United States 1951-77, the great political changes, the American issues, especially the Vietnam war, the popular images especially in film? The importance for a middle-aged audience of appreciating the range of change?
6. How authentic was the basic situation - how credible? That such meetings occur, that the encounters happen in this way? Emotion, shared interests, passion? Standards, morality, responsibility, guilt? Lack of guilt? The handling of an emotional situation and intimacy? The repercussions? How well did the song illustrate the meeting with its ordinariness, the banal aspects of it yet its reality? Doris and George waking up and comic handling of the morning after, indication of the prospects for the future?
7. What insight did the film offer into the themes of love, mutual attraction, passion and sexuality? These themes within the context of the two marriages and the commitment? The depth of the commitment of Doris and George to each other, to their spouses? Was this double commitment presented credibly? Doris' knowledge of Helen and the audience sharing this? The same with George and Harry? The device of the good and bad stories and the character build-up of each though they are never seen? The themes of marriage, separation and divorce? Popular social attitudes in Doris and George, in the audience? Responsibilities for the break-up of a marriage? Children? The importance of George helping Doris to give birth and the repercussions for their relationship? The importance of George's reconciling Doris and Harry? The difference in the 1977 sequence with George free and asking Doris to make a decision? Her motives for staying with Harry? For their own arrangement to continue?
8. Alan Alda's portrait of George? How typical an American male? His job as an accountant and his skill at this despite himself, his rising over the years, the period in his giving it up and taking to playing music, his final years and his lecturing? His musical skill - and as an outlet for tension? His nervousness and insecurity, his telling lies? His chauvinist attitudes? His educational snobbery? The build-up to his attitude towards the anniversaries and his reliance on these? His passion for Doris, his communicating with her despite his presuppositions about her? His growing love for her? His opportunities in the '505 for developing? His marriage and his lies about Helen and yet his devotion to her? His preoccupation about his children especially Michael? How was this illustrated in 1956 with his preoccupation about the tooth, his trying to run away and get the plane, Doris confronting him and his decision to return? The irony of the background of his impotence in 1961 - his talking to his mother on the phone? Finding Doris pregnant and trying to find ways of communicating?
His growing stiffness in attitude and conservatism in 1966? His voting for Goldwater, his hard comments on the younger generation, the generation gap and his looking his age? His style of clothes? The sudden impact of the death of his son and his inability to weep? His ability to cry with Doris? His being anti-trendy and shocked at Doris' language? The 1972 sequences and his relationship while yet serious? The jargon and language of psychology of the early 170s? His ease, playing the piano, job? His reaction to Doris and her businesslike attitude, Women's Lib.? The accident of intercepting Harry's call and his arranging for a reconciliation - but yet not revealing his identity? 1977 and his ageing, the happiness of his life and his memories of Helen, the truth about her knowing, her death and its impact on him? Connie and his using her as an alternative marriage? The importance of the proposal? The pathos of his loneliness? His coming back and the arrangement staying? How rounded a portrait of an ordinary American man throughout a long period, changing? The effect of not seeing him in the intervening spaces of the years, or seeing him with anyone else except Doris? What insight into the American male?
9. Ellen Burstyn's performance as Doris and the portrait of an American woman? Her charm, niceness, uneducated? Her infatuation with George? Her going to the retreat and the story about her in-laws? Her pregnancy and the marriage to Harry? Her shyness and not wanting to talk about sexuality when George did? Harry and the relationship and his not succeeding at jobs? Her children? Her attitude towards guilt and responsibility and confession? The transition from the Doris Day type to the Marilyn Monroe glamour girl in the mid-'50s? Her being more poised, her reaction to the incident about the tooth after the glamorous dinner, her taking George to the plane, the confrontation with him? 1961 and her pregnancy, her coping with it, her vocabulary and better education? The birth-pangs and her fears, George trying to get help with the hospital, the doctor, George's strength in stopping and helping her to give birth? The transition in 1966 and her trendiness, the bored housewife going to school, her language, Berkeley, education and protests? Her bluntness and her horror at his conservative attitudes? Her mouthing of trendy statements? Her immediate sympathy on Michael's death? The transition in 1972 to the smart and successful middle-aged businesswoman, more successful than Harry, her concern about his being lost? Her reaction to George and his psychology? 1977 and the old lady, quieter, poised? Her refusal to leave Harry? Her sadness and the humour of George's return? Portrait of an American woman?
10. The sketch of Harry and his lacks, his army life and his love for it, Doris' story about his playing with the kids, his various jobs, his being lost and talking with George? Her decision to stay? Helen and her hardness yet her knowledge of the affair? The story of the kids and their changes?
11. The film's insight into the quarter of a century - the '50s, moral tone, the mid-'50s and greater sophistication, middle age and guilt, the unexpected pregnancy, the '60s and political fears, change, the Vietnam war, protests, the '70s and their psychology, Women's Lib? How much change in such a period?
12. How much insight and truth within the space of a two-hour romantic comedy?
