I like the actors, but

Also, I don't think they'd stay interested, much less even remember many details of each other's lives, over the years given how little they know of each other. I know that a lot if piggish idiots have struck up affairs trying to emulate this movie, thinkibg that minimuzing the trysts to once oer year diesn't really make it that sinful.

It still does.

Although they meet every year, the film shows their meetings every fifth year, so the changes are not as jarring as they may appear.

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A lot can happen in 5 years. Some of the jumps were even slightly longer than that.

It hasn't aged well at all. There was a time when STNY was a regular fixture of community theatre productions. I myself have seen it on stage more than once back in the 80's. One remembers the scene in Ordinary People in which it is being watched as a stage play. But similar to most of Neil Simon's works, what might have worked for a previous era is almost forgotten now. The writing aims for "witty", but rarely ever actually achieves it. It thinks itself more clever than it actually is. Burstyn was good in an improbable role. (Her liberated hippie phase was perhaps the most ludicrous.) Surprisingly, given that Alda has ordinarily impeccable comic timing, he doesn't fare as well with the material and is almost painful to watch in his more dramatic moments in the film. One can see Bernard Slade attempting to make some inchoate statement on changing times and shifting mores as filtered through the prism of this couple, but there is no depth to it. Its insights into American culture during a period of upheaval are hopelessly banal and shallow.

It was maybe a bit extreme...the degree to which she or he went this way or that way.

But generally, I think her phases were pretty spot on for many. I know I went through similar phases gradually. I totally related to her phases. I've been through similar ones.

The inside stays the same, but she changes to fit the era and her growth as a person. Totally believable to me. Including her successful business. She was very young at the start. She hadn't experienced much of life and didn't know what her strengths and weaknesses were yet.

Given she has already cheated on her husband I would think that once she goes to college she would be having affairs with younger men as well. She seems rather easily swayed by things. I think she would also lose interest in the Alda character.