Next year, same time

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Movie
German title Next year, same time
Original title Same time, next year
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Robert Mulligan
script Bernard Slade
production Morton Gottlieb
Walter Mirisch
music Marvin Hamlisch
camera Robert Surtees
cut Sheldon Kahn
occupation

Next year, same time, is an American romance film from 1978 . The literary film adaptation is based on the play of the same name, Same Time, Next Year by Bernard Slade .

action

1951 on the coast of Mendocino County , California . The 27-year-old accountant George Peters from New Jersey meets the 24-year-old housewife Doris from Oakland at the bar of Sea Shadows INN . Both have an intense night of love and wake up next to each other in the morning. Unfortunately, they're married, just not to each other. Rather, both are now to blame for having committed an affair. He's so obsessive-compulsive that he doesn't know how to deal with the guilt while she is relatively naive about the situation. Of course, he's never done that before. With the awkwardness in bed that would really be a miracle. But somehow they are drawn to each other and the topic quickly shifts from guilt to real life. Doris tells about her husband Harry, whom she loves so much. This loyal man who can be so powerful and yet so loving. Every year he goes to Bakersfield with his three children for his mother's birthday , but she never goes. After all, Doris is hated by her mother-in-law. Precisely because she became pregnant, he had to drop out of his dental school to take care of the family. So that she can atone for this guilt halfway, Doris always takes a little break during the days to spend her time with the nuns. And George loves his Helen more than anything. She gave him so much confidence and always kept her sense of humor.

By the time Doris and George celebrated their fifth anniversary in 1956, they had already brought some tradition into their annual weekend. Again and again at the same time they both meet for this little weekend, far from all worries and obligations. They have sex, go out to eat, and talk about their respective lives. George moved from New Jersey to a farm in Connecticut and is worried about his son Michael. He was supposed to write an essay about what he did over the summer, detailing how he tried to get deflowered and get an erection in public places. Harry worries Doris too. He's just too kind-hearted to be a sales representative. He's broke because he couldn't sell any of the people anything that was beyond their financial limits. But for this kindness she just loves him. And she finally wants to sleep with George. But he is suddenly called by his daughter, who has lost her tooth and doesn't know where he is. George is immediately alarmed and wants to help his little one. He breaks off the weekend 23 hours earlier and drives straight to the airport. Doris feels rejected and he still feels guilty for not being with his daughter on the one hand and having an affair on the other. At the airport, however, Doris explains to him that she had already thought of never seeing him again. She had thought of him several times a year, each time noting that he also played a role in her life outside of Sea Shadow INN . Besides, she just doesn't see any point in meeting each other in the same room every year if you're just feeling guilty anyway. If George got on the plane now, it would be all over. But George just gets into her car and drives back to the hut.

The annual meetings continue and after five more years George and Doris see each other again in their old hut. Only now he is struggling with potency problems while she is eight months pregnant with her fourth child. Instead of sex, there is only conversation. Once again it's about what has become of their lives and how Harry, Helen and the six children are doing. In addition, Doris reveals a great secret to him. She's been having sex dreams with George almost exclusively lately. The sex is always the same, it takes place in the water, in grottos and other wet and humid areas, possibly because she is pregnant. George, on the other hand, is surprised when he takes care of the pregnant woman and realizes that he is sexually aroused. Doris then does not cry because she is shocked, but because she has gone into labor. George has to call a doctor, but he can't make it to the hut in time to give birth to the child himself.

In 1966 they meet again. But time has changed them more than expected. George has become a well-to-do, successful business executive who moved to Los Angeles six months ago and embraced conservative values. Doris, on the other hand, recognized marriage as a prison, broke out and started studying at Berkeley . She also became a hippie , is politically active and demonstrates against the Vietnam War . Since George doesn't want to discuss politics, Doris tells about her now five-year-old Georgina and how she grows up. She also thinks George's ultra-conservative attitudes are funny, but then it comes to a political dispute, because George not only voted for Barry Goldwater , but also advocates the dropping of an atomic bomb on Vietnam. When Doris hears this, she is shocked. She almost slept with him. But where does this hatred come from? George lost his son Michael in the Vietnam War. He was helping a wounded comrade into the ambulance helicopter when he himself was hit by a sniper. George didn't get the news until July 4th . His Helen collapsed, and he was ashamed of not having shed a tear and feeling no pain, just blind anger and hatred. But here and now, together with Doris, he can finally mourn the death of his beloved Michael. Doris hugs him and they both cry.

In 1972 Doris came up with the news that she had become a grandmother. So much has changed in her life. She became a successful business woman with the women's movement , which now makes up to half a million a year. After all, a woman in the country must have money so that she can exercise power in order to finally be taken seriously. For George, however, money has no value at all. One day he came into his expensive $ 150,000 house with his three cars and wondered if it really was him. He wanted to find himself and accordingly gave up his old life. Helen was not particularly pleased about this, but she remained loyal to him and now lives with him in simple circumstances. He himself only earns money as a bar pianist. But that's enough for him. Rather, he is now doing psychoanalysis and immediately discovered problems in Doris' life. Harry didn't even notice she had her nose done. Maybe she even lost him completely. He left the house a few days ago and has not called in since then. Since then she has been waiting eagerly for a sign from him. She is desperate and recognizes in George the friend and husband with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life. With this marriage proposal, she leaves the house to get some culinary presents from the car to enjoy the weekend. Meanwhile, however, Harry calls. He wonders where his wife is. George loves Doris, but he also wants her to be happy, so he takes the opportunity to save her marriage. His wife loves him and she is grateful to be able to live with such a man. That my George is honest, as true as his name is Reverend Michael O'Hearley.

When Doris and George meet in 1977, they look a little wistfully at their one-night stand affair, which has been going on for 26 years. Basically, mathematically, they are still on their honeymoon. But so much has changed in all that time. George is now a lecturer at UCLA and Doris has sold her successful company and is enjoying her retirement. Harry recently had a minor heart attack and now runs his four miles a day, giving him the body of a Mark Spitz , but still the face of an Ernest Borgnine . However, there is also bad news. Helen died six months earlier. That hit George deeply and Doris also feels that, although she has never seen Helen in person, she has suddenly lost a good old friend. George is alone now. But he's not a man who can live alone. He wants to get married. Doris is supposed to be his wife. He almost married her. Now he asks her. But she can't. So often she wanted him to ask for her hand, and in her fantasy she always answered “yes”. But she doesn't want to leave Harry. You still have that one weekend together every year. That must be enough. But if she doesn't marry him now, George threatens, he'll never see her again. With tears she refuses again. All that remains is for George to find out who her favorite actors are. With the last of her strength, she says that it is Laurence Olivier , Marlon Brando , Cary Grant and Lon McCallister . Then George leaves the shared hut. Doris turns away from the door, bursts into tears and knows that the wonderful time has come to an end. She will never see her beloved George again. She drops down on the bed and just starts crying. But George rushes in and explains wildly that it was all just a bluff. He couldn't leave his beloved Doris alone. His plan to put pressure on her might not have been well thought out, but it was desperate. He would come back over and over again until the end of her days.

criticism

Janet Maslin of the New York Times criticized the storyline because she found it unbelievable that one could meet for over two decades, be happy with one another and still have a good marriage. The story is full of "falsehood" and the "script is not often funny". With his dramatic elements, Bernard Slade would even struggle for “a cheap tear from the audience”. She also criticized the two actors, with Alda "not being very playful" and speaking the text as if "everything was just a joke in a flat script". And Burstyn's representations generally seem implausible.

The Variety , however, praised the film. The love film "sensitively staged by Robert Mulligan" has everything "what one could wish for in a film." It is "simply nice to see a film about two people who like each other deeply."

The lexicon of international film said: "Inventively filmed stage comedy, excellently played in the main roles."

background

In Germany, the film was released on May 15, 1979 and was first broadcast on DFF 1 on December 6, 1983 . The film will only be released in a German purchase version ( DVD ) in September 2014 .

The play premiered on March 14, 1975 at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway and ran with 1,453 performances through September 3, 1978. Slade had originally had both Alda and Burstyn in mind as first cast members. Alda had to cancel because of filming on his television series M * A * S * H and was replaced by Charles Grodin , with Burstyn playing the role for nine months. Originally, however, the producer Mirisch tried to win Warren Beatty for the film.

Paul McCartney had recorded the song Same Time, Next Year with his band Wings , which was not used in the film. He released it on the B-side of his LP Put It There in 1990 .

Hong Kong director Clifton Ko filmed the play a second time in 1994 with I Will Wait for You . Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Anita Yuen played the leading roles.

Awards (selection)

Academy Awards 1979
Golden Globe Awards 1979

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janet Maslin: Same Time Next Year (1978) on nytimes.com, November 22, 1978, accessed January 18, 2013
  2. ↑ Same Time, Next Year on variety.com, December 31, 1977, accessed January 18, 2013
  3. ↑ Next year, same time. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. Jump up ↑ Alan Alda, Ellen Burstyn Star In Movie Version Of Broadway Play , Lakeland Ledger, April 2, 1978
  5. ↑ See Mirisch, p. 341.