Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Mazursky's sharp but sympathetic satire on the Encounter-group mindset and free-love ethos that swept certain areas of Californian life (Hollywood included, of course) in the late '60s. Too often dismissed as modish, it's in fact a mostly very funny, insightful, gently romantic account of well-meaning couples - documentarist Culp and wife Wood (seriously sincere and 'liberated'), and their relatively straitlaced pals Gould and Cannon - striving valiantly but vainly to balance personal needs and desires with changing social fads and theories. The closing moments are a touch trite, but until then the subtlety of writing and playing - coupled with a spontaneity and readiness to let scenes sprawl at times almost reminiscent of Cassavetes - make for pleasures aplenty.