The Four Seasons: still classy after all these years
Alison Rowat
****
There is some serious tote bag and high-end luggage action going on in this remake of the 1981 film of the same name. Tina Fey knows her audience. And she knows funny, which comes in very handy when you are trekking in the footsteps of the comedy legend that is Alan Alda.
Alda's original movie was about six college pals who got together on holidays to kick the tyres of their friendships and marriages. It was a lovely piece, written, directed and starring Alda. Four decades on, he handed the baton to fellow comedy blue blood Fey, and the result is a delightfully soapy wander through the foothills of mid-life, angst and all.
Fey (30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) has kept the basics, with some updating here and there. The pandemic is given a namecheck, for example, and Danny and Claudia are now Danny and Claude. Otherwise, it's same old-same old, which is an advantage or disadvantage depending on how much you remember of the plot.
That won't be a problem for the younger Netflix viewer, to whom 1981 might as well be 1881. But the core appeal of The Four Seasons was always more the players than the plot. Fey has chosen her cast wisely, beginning with herself as Kate, the control freak and cynic married to nice guy Jack (Will Forte Fey's Saturday Night Life partner in crime).
Steve Carell is the starriest of the bunch as Nick, a trader entering the tricky 'life's too short' phase of life. He's been married to Anne (Kerri Kenney, Reno 911!) for a quarter of a century and is feeling every minute. 'She's given up,' he says. 'She won't do anything.'
Of the rest, Colman Domingo (Selma, Lincoln) is a standout turn as Danny, another character eyeing the grass in the other paddock. Marco Calvani (High Tide) has a tough gig as the over-attentive (and lightly sketched) Claude, but makes the best of it.
Fey and co-writers Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield have taken the 1hr 49 minutes movie and spread it over eight half hours. As a result, it is thin in parts, and slightly repetitive. Once the basic set-up is in place, only the locations change, with the gang swapping a beach holiday for a parents' weekend in a university town, then a ski weekend.
The series also generates more in the way of wry smiles than laugh-out-loud moments. While the comedy targets are hardly cutting edge, the writing is sharp and never boring. Here you will find gags about aching hips, the joy of going to bed at 8pm, and (my favourite), buying a bath with a door in it.
If you can forgive those minor flaws for old times' sake, or even if you just fancy a binge-watch featuring lots of cool totes and Tina Fey, The Four Seasons is a comfy, rewarding watch.
Alda, by the by, loved it so much he turned up to a special screening of his film to mark the Netflix launch. Still classy after all these years.
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