Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams Reviews

Some very captivating performances on the part of Woodward, Balsam, and Sidney who returns to the screen after 17 years. Balsam and Woodward are a successful middle-age couple who have only middle-class material pleasures. Upon the death of Sidney, Woodward's mother, the pair head to France and the battlefield where Balsam faced the scariest moments of his life, where he supposedly learned to really value his existence, to recapture that sense of vitality, of the importance of an existence free from danger. In what might be viewed as a reprise of Lew Ayres' role in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT--Balsam spent the night with three German corpses during WW II. Now a successful oculist, his problems--and those of wife Woodward--center about such things as whether she should redecorate their apartment. The tedium of their current lives is faithfully replicated in what becomes a tedious picture. Nominated for two Oscars: Best Actress (Woodward, who lost to Glenda Jackson for A TOUCH OF CLASS) and Best Supporting Actress (Sidney, who lost to Tatum O'Neal for PAPER MOON).