A Change of Seasons (1980)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Filmographies-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	97:36 (Case: 102)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Richard Lang
Studio Distributor	Film Finance Group Infogrames	Starring	Shirley MacLaine Anthony Hopkins Bo Derek Michael Brandon Mary Beth Hurt
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$32.95	Music	Henry Mancini

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Before you ask exactly why I stuck my hand up for this film, I can give you the reason in two words: Anthony Hopkins. Any role that this man touches seems to turn to gold, even where "we're only in it for the money" films such as Hannibal or the upcoming Red Dragon remake are concerned. Nonetheless, after quickly reading the blurb on the case, I have to admit that the film did seem a little more interesting than most other midlife crisis films from before the 1990s. As to how it compares with other midlife crisis films of more recent years, or films where the central characters undergo massive changes in lifestyle and perspective, that is one thing I leave to the viewer.

    Adam Evans (Anthony Hopkins) is a college professor with a beautiful wife named Karyn (Shirley MacLaine), who comes right out in the first reel and asks him if he is having an affair. Adam respects his wife too much to lie to her, so he admits that he had an affair with a student by the name of Lindsey Rutledge (Bo Derek), in the midst of trying to rationalise his reasons. When he takes off to attend to business in Montreal for a while, Karyn begins whining to friends about her situation, and then Pete Lachapelle (Michael Brandon) shows up to do some work on the house. Next thing you know, Karyn begins having an affair with Pete in earnest, which doesn't make Adam very happy when he comes home to discover them on the floor together (it's not as lurid as it sounds). Oh, and shelving, there's lots and lots and lots of shelving that Pete has put together strewn about the house when he gets home.

    The next thing that Adam decides to do is go to the second house that he and Karyn have shared during their marriage, but another argument erupts about who he is taking with him. Eventually, it is decided that Adam will take Lindsey with him, while Karyn will take Pete, sparking some rather interesting exchanges about each another's unpleasant character traits. Things get a tiny bit more complicated, however, when Adam's and Karyn's daughter, Kasey (Mary Beth Hurt) arrives unannounced and demands answers as to why her parents are behaving this way. Lindsay's father, Steven (Edward Winter) also makes an appearance, and all involved explain the complicated triangle of affairs to him, prompting a rather perplexed response. I know you want more, however, so Kasey's on-and-off lover, Paul Di Lisi (Paul Regina) also shows up.

    The plot of this film is like a group of paints thrown together and spun in a bucket for about ninety minutes, with the whole story making one wonder if there really are human beings who behave like this. If you want to see a display of sublime acting from Anthony Hopkins, however, then it can't hurt to take a look at this disc. 

Video

    After my review of Last Exit To Brooklyn, I wasn't expecting much from this transfer, but I got something a little better.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. It is hard to tell whether we are getting the whole picture here, but the scene compositions seem mostly intact.

    The sharpness of this transfer is still very ordinary, with no real bright shows of detail to be found in the picture. The resolution in a lot of backgrounds is about what you'd expect from a laserdisc or current-generation VHS transfer, and the foregrounds don't appear to be much better. The shadow detail is generally poor, with night-time scenes in particular containing huge amounts of barren blacks that have little or no discernable depth to them. Thankfully, there is no low-level noise, although grain makes its presence known in backgrounds a fair amount of the time.

    The colours in this transfer are very muted and subdued most of the time, giving the film a sort of Days Of Our Lives feel that is often characteristic of films from the early 1980s. There are no instances of colour bleeding or smearing, thankfully.

    MPEG artefacts don't seem to be a real problem for this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some occasional and minor instances of aliasing that were never too distracting from the film. Film artefacts peppered the picture in fairly liberal amounts, with all sorts of black and white specks on the picture popping up with regularity.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack included on this DVD: the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding and a bitrate of 224 kilobits per second.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, which is hardly surprising considering that ninety-nine percent of the film is about talking, arguing, or talking about arguing. There were no discernable problems with audio sync.

    The music in this film is credited to Henry Mancini, but apart from a boring little ballad that makes its way into the film at regular intervals, the music really doesn't become noticeable at all. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to even come up with an instance of memorable film scoring from this effort, or one that even adds to the atmosphere of the film.

    The surround channels were pretty wasted with this film, which barely has a sound effect for the processor to direct into them. They quietly went to sleep behind me about five minutes into the film and nothing was heard from them since. Likewise, the subwoofer had very little to do with this transfer, and also decided to take the night off.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static, not 16x9 Enhanced, but very easy to navigate.

Cast Filmographies

    Filmographies for Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine, Bo Derek, Michael Brandon, and Mary Beth Hurt are included here. Whatever efforts you find in these listings, please don't judge them on the basis of this film.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    From what I can tell, it appears that Regions 1 and 2 miss out on this title.

    A Change Of Seasons has prompted one armchair critic to ask how actors like Anthony Hopkins and Shirley MacLaine can appear in a film as husband and wife, yet have so little on-screen chemistry. Myself, I thought the first hour was okay, but it soon runs into problems when trying to resolve itself.

    The video transfer is acceptable if you're really rabid about the film.

    The audio transfer is unspectacular.

    A collection of filmographies do not an extras package make.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall