Now Streaming: SEASONS, Kicking, Screaming, and Accepting

Love is universal. So is the pain of breaking up.

Seasons (orig. Szony)
The film is now streaming, exclusively on Viaplay, in the U.S., via Amazon's page and, in Canada, via Rogers East.

Just last week, the stinging Swedish dramatic series Scenes After a Marriage began streaming on ViaPlay, and now the service brings us a Polish film about a relationship that is reaching its breaking point. Both are reminders that "love will tear us apart," as Joy Division put it plainly. (Pour one out for Ian Curtis.)

In Seasons, Marcin and Ola are first seen rushing through city streets, along with their two children, engaged in a conversation that steadily gains steam. Arriving at their destination, they are revealed to be two actors in a stage production of Peter Pan: Marcin is Captain Hook and Ola is Wendy.

As they hurriedly prepare to make their entrances, their conversation becomes heated, escalating into a full-scale argument and Ola's admission that she had an affair, some three years before. And virtually everyone else in the small theater company knew, too, which only adds more fuel to the fire that is now burning in Marcin, leading to outrageous actions on stage, in front of an audience made up largely of wide-eyed children who are shocked by what happens.

Directed by Michał Grzybowski from a script he wrote with Tomasz Walesiak, the film's conceit is that it follows the traditional three-act structure by revolving around three stage productions, adapting the tone of each play. And so Peter Pan informs the film's first act with boisterous action and comedy, while Ibsen's A Doll's House turns meditative and reflective in the film's second act, as Ola lays bare the roots of her discontent, and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream gives Marcin an opportunity to put up a final fight for the relationship in the film's third and concluding act.

As the wildly emotional Marcin, Lukasz Simlat erupts like a volcano in the first act before plunging into despair in the second act, and then regaining his verve in the third act. As the more restrained Ola, Agnieszka Duleba-Kasza tempers her reactions in front of others, yet still taps into a deep reservoir of resentment when she is able to focus entirely on Marcin.

The supporting cast is very good, too, led by Andrzej Grabowski as Marcin's father -- also a member of the company, who threatens that each performance will be his last -- and Wiktoria Filus as Ewa, a young and upcoming actor who points to the next generation of actors in the company.

Even though there is a degree of repetition in the arguments that are made, Seasons leavens the drama with shots of humor -- note the two actors who keep arguing about Robert De Niro -- and adds sufficient substance to the clever premise to make for a satisfying, if ultimately quite rueful, watch.

Now Streaming celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal streaming services.