Starting Over (1979)

Waste of time

To me, this movie is perfection.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Burt Reynolds played Phil Potter, a Boston publishing executive. In this film, he and his wife, Jessica, split up. She wants to pursue a singing career. Candice Bergen earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Jessica Potter. Phil meets Marilyn Holmburg, a school teacher, who helps him deal with the breakup. Jill Clayburgh earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Marilyn. Reynolds, Clayburgh and Bergen did earn Golden Globe nominations for their roles in this film. The film is a nice romantic comedy about mature adults. They don't make films like this anymore. Burt Reynolds can act aside from action films. He is totally a different character here.

After several years as a comic book action hero, Burt Reynolds took a calculated career risk at becoming a romantic leading man in the 1979 comedy STARTING OVER and the risk paid off in spades. Reynolds turned in his best performance up to this point as Phil Potter, a writer whose wife (Candice Bergen) has just divorced him who enters, perhaps a bit too quickly, another relationship with a neurotic schoolteacher (Jill Clayburgh. This smartly directed comedy, lovingly directed by ALan J. Pakula hits all the right notes and introduces characters you care about. Bergen also opened up a whole new career for herself, showing a flair for light comedy, which resulted in her first Oscar nomination. Her musical seduction of Burt with "Better than Ever" is one of the funniest scenes in film comedies ever. Bergen's performance here was largely responsible for her being offered the role of Murphy Brown. Clayburgh (also nominated for an Oscar) is just as good, creating a quirky and heartbreaking character who evokes laughs and sympathy. It has been well documented over the years that Reynolds was deeply hurt when both of his leading ladies here received Oscar nominations and he did not. Then to add insult to injury, the Best Actress Oscar that year went to his girlfriend at the time, Sally Field. Burt should have been nominated for this film...it was beautifully controlled performance that was nothing like he had ever done before. Charles Durning and Frances Sternhage offer strong support as Phils' brother and sister-in-law and don't overlook those wonderful scenes with Burt's Divorced Men's support group. A winning romantic comedy that finally proved Burt Reynolds really knew how to act.

"Starting Over" works very well because it's a film made for and by adults. And it's got some very funny moments.Yes, it's got all the trappings of a typical "ROMCOM" but back in 1979, the ROMCOM formula had not developed into the hackneyed, tiresome concept that it became. By the late 90's, the style that "Starting Over" began seems to have expired (it arguably reached it's zenith circa 1994 with "Sleeping in Seattle". Whether one liked that movie or not, all the trappings of the stylized ROMCOM formula were firmly and grossly used in that one.) But I digress."Starting Over" works so well because of Pakula's typical very low keyed direction which allows James L. Brooks' screenplay to shine. But this film would be nothing without the cast. Clayburgh is fine but of the three leads, she's the least appealing. Don't get me wrong. She's an engaging presence in the film and it's quite understandable why Reynolds is attracted to her (except for a shower scene in which, to me, she over reacts). The hands down winners in this film are Reynolds and especially Bergen. Bergen tapped into a completely unexpected flair for comedy as a royally flaky song writing ex-wife of Reynolds. She's a gas especially in an hysterical scene when she begins singing a disco ditty ("Better Than Ever") in a hotel room while trying to reconcile with Reynolds.Reynolds is a complete revelation. Gone is his trademark mustache and cockiness and it works to marvelous effect. He's mature, low key and completely likable. It would've been so easy for Reynolds to play down the part to the point where he appears to be sleepwalking (ala William Hurt in "The Accidental Tourist"). But here, though he's depressed, he's also alive. He's just a guy going through something that he wishes he didn't have to. He loves/likes his ex-wife and can't understand why he's the odd man out.From a plot and structural standpoint, "Starting Over" isn't much. It's setup and resolution are standard and completely unremarkable. Aside from the wonderful cast and good writing, the film is photographed beautifully by Sven Nyquist. This Swede (who was Ingmar Bergman's chief Director of Photography) knows how to film chilly northern environments and he gives Boston in winter an appealing glow.

She was again nominated for the Academy Award in 1979 for her role in 'Starting Over' (1979). This movie starred Burt Reynolds as Phil Potter and Jill Clayburgh as Marilyn Holmberg.Baltimore Bob's 1 of 10 favorite movie lines in 'Starting Over': "There was a funny line spoken when Marilyn is being followed by Phil in this movie in New York City and they are strangers not knowing that they are headed to the same place to meet for the first time. Marilyn senses that a stranger is following her and all of a sudden she turns to Phil and says 'Take one more step my way and I'll cut your balls off' so Phil backs off eventually getting to the place where he is going where she is discussing the fact that there was some pervert following her only to be totally embarrassed about the fact the guy was Phil."Baltimore Bob