The Writer's Poke

Alan Alda has written and directed a few films in his career, and this one might be the best known. Since I listen to his podcast and he had a rerun of the Carol Burnett episode recently, the film entered my radar, and I thought I'd give it a watch. During the podcast, Burnett mentioned that she tweaked her part to make it feel more "real" from a woman's perspective. I was looking for the scene, and I guess it was the one where Jack (Alda) calls Kate (Burnett) "perfect." That's surprising, though, because that's exactly what Jack would call Kate. Kate doesn't want to be called perfect, though, because that's burdensome and in some ways dehumanizes her. Basically, the film follows three friend couples through one year -- four seasons -- of their friendship. To work a little better, I think maybe instead of four back-to-back seasons, the movie should have followed them through four figurative seasons -- from friendship's beginning through t...