Starting Over (2007)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Robin Pilcher's "Starting Over" -- I bought this as a two-movie DVD set with "A Risk Worth Taking", and was amazed that the DVD cover-synopsis failed to match the story I watched. Having checked some web-sites, it seems that the FILM used the names of the characters in the novel, but NOTHING else. Here is the FILM's synopsis. Aristocratic Liz (descendant and inheritor-owner of a grand Scottish estate -- VERY picturesque!) is profoundly distressed when her younger brother (who she has cared for an raised since her father died when she was young) is killed in a riding accident, racing with her husband. (Her husband and her brother have always been friends, but competitive.) Blaming her husband, she banishes him to the estate's gate house. She feels numb and is also suffering from the natural (apparent) weakening of affection with her husband of many years. The dead brother had bungled finances, and the result is that his debts and the mortgage on the estate COULD be reason for the family's bank to intervene. The family's self-serving and unscrupulous financial adviser tries to take advantage of the situation, manipulating the bank so it exerts pressure on the confused wife to sell part of the estate to a crass property developer. This financial adviser also manipulates a still-besotted, but financially vulnerable early girl-friend of the estranged husband, hoping to distract, manipulate, and ensnare him. Meanwhile, struggling in his undergraduate studies, the son of the estranged couple uses an obscure out-of-print book as a source in one of his university essays. When his footloose bachelor American Classics professor queries this, the son explains that his grandfather collected old travel books, and the son used one of these from the estate's private library. Intrigued, the professor arranges to visit the estate, inspect the family library, and meet the unhappy wife, ... There are, eventually, obvious, but very satisfying romantic, and economic resolutions. John Gough -- [email protected]