A man and woman meet by chance at a romantic inn over dinner and, although both are happily married to others, they find themselves in the same bed the next morning questioning how this could have happened. They agree to meet on the same weekend each year—in the same hotel room—and the years pass each has some personal crisis that the other helps them through, often without both of them understanding what is going on.
Acting
Alda and Burstyn's chemistry could power a small city.
Writing
Bernard Slade's stage adaptation keeps the theatrical sharpness.
Costume
Doris's evolving fashion charts second-wave feminism in real time.
Director
Robert Mulligan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ellen Burstyn won a Tony for the stage version and insisted on doing the film despite studio preference for a bigger star.
The 1952 opening initially plays as cute adultery comedy, but by 1977 Doris's consciousness-raising and George's wounded traditionalism map directly onto America's culture wars.
US
