ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Yvonne Jodi Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

vincentlynch-moonoi I had forgotten how much I used to enjoy Burt Reynolds. No, he was never a GREAT actor, but he was almost always enjoyable on screen. And this is another of his engaging performances. It's a decent story about a man who is dumped by his wife (a quite young Candice Bergen) and has to start over. And after a few stumbles he starts over with Jill Clayburgh, who plays a rather insecure teacher who has trouble developing relationships because she is too in need of permanence early on. And just when they finally do move in together, up shows the old wife! So, of course, the question is, which way will he go...although we all really know the answer. But meanwhile, he makes the poor choices.Just for the record, this is one of Burt's more serious films. It's not a comedy, although there is some humor in it. I think it's more drama.There are some other familiar faces here, including the wonderful Charles Durning, but they don't have much screen time...just along to move the plot.Burt is good here. Not Laurence Olivier, but he's good for the role. So is Jill Clayburgh. I wasn't very impressed with Candice Bergen, which is odd, because usually I don't care that much for Jill Clayburgh...here they flipped.

zardoz-13 "All the President's Men" director Alan J. Pakula stepped out of his comfort zone so to speak to helm this lightweight 'divorce' romance comedy with Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, Candice Bergen, Charles Durning, and Frances Sternhagen. Previously, the closest that Pakula came to "Starting Over" was "The Sterile Cukoo" (1969) and "Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing" (1973). Usually, Pakula specialized in dark-themed conspiracy thrillers, such "Klute" and "The Parallax View," or melodramas like "Comes A Horseman," "Rollover," and "Presumed Innocent." Not only was Pakula venturing out of his usual zone, but also Burt Reynolds definitely stepped out of his comfort zone, too. Reynolds made "Starting Over" between his "Smokey and the Bandit" movies and "Hooper." Although both Clayburgh and Bergin received Oscar nominations respective for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, Reynolds didn't get a Best Actor nod for what is essentially one of his more winning as well as offbeat performances. He did receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor in Musical/Comedy for his performance in "Starting Over." Indeed, Reynolds is more subdued than you can ever imagine this action hero being. He slows down his cadence and displays a vulnerability that was never apart of his action hero roles. Reynolds' wardrobe reflects this change-of-pace casting. He dons sweater vests to wear with his sports jackets and trench coat. Reynolds plays Phil Potter. His wife Jessica (Candice Bergen of "Bite the Bullet") has slept with his boss and she gives Burt the boot. Phil is heart-broken that his wife is kicking him out. He didn't want to part company with her, but she has a popular tune hit and is able to go out on her own. You know that you're watching a comedy because Bergen's character has no vocal talent and sounds distressingly off-key. Here is a sample of the lyrics of her song: "I'm sure I've cried more tears than you-ooh-ooh, but I've gotta be more than a shadow of my mannnnnnnn-nuh." A dejected Phil starts over with the help of his older brother Michael (Mickey) Potter (Charles Durning of "The Choirboys") and his wife Marva (Frances Sternhagen of "Outland") and they set him up with a variety of women. When he isn't dating, Phil participates in a divorced men's workshop in the basement of a church. These scenes are amusing in themselves because the women constantly antagonize the men into leaving early. Meantime, the winner of all the women that Phil sees is a school teacher, Marilyn (Jill Clayburgh of "An Unmarried Woman"), but they endure a rocky romance, principally because Phil hasn't gotten over his ex-wife. Incredibly enough, just as Phil is adjusting to his new life and getting along with Marilyn, Jessica shows up to collapse that house of cards between Marilyn and Phil. When Phil tries to reunite with Jessica, Marilyn asks him to swear on his brother's life that he won't bother her again. Of course, this is not to be and Phil and Jessica cannot rekindle the glow that once warmed their romance. "Starting Over" is just a change of pace for both Pakula and Reynolds that you could almost ignore it, were it not for scenarist James L. Brooks' adaptation of Dan Wakefield's novel. Interestingly, Reynolds had appeared earlier in another lightweight football comedy that was derived from Wakefield's novel "Semi-Tough." It is refreshing to see Reynolds play a role that doesn't require him to pack a pistol or perform dangerous automobile stunts. Actually, he does run a small car off a road onto a snowy embankment where he crashes into a tree, but it isn't a life-or-death stunt. The funniest scene occurs when Phil and Marilyn are shopping at Bloomingdale's for a sofa and Phil experiences a panic attack. Eventually, Micky comes to his rescue and convinces Phil that he was just hyperventilating. Mickey asks the spectators if any of them have a Valium and everybody tries to fork over the medication. If you want to see Burt Reynolds stretch himself as an actor and watching an entertaining comedy, "Starting Over" is a good start.

Poseidon-3 Reynolds, who was noted at the time for playing a lot of moustached, gum-chewing, hairy-chested rednecks, took a different tack in this thoughtful and understated romantic comedy and it earned him a fair amount of respect (though not an Oscar nomination as many expected.) He plays the husband of Bergen, an aspiring songwriter and singer who proves unlivable during her recent foray into the music biz. After a brief stay with his brother Durning, he sets up his own apartment and goes about entering the dating pool again after many years of marriage. One of the women he meets is Clayburgh, a pleasant, sensitive woman with a fear of commitment and trust. The two strike up a tentative romance and appear to be headed for another go-round at matrimony until Bergen shows up (in a see through blouse) and announces that she's ready to win Reynolds back for herself. Clean-shaven Reynolds gives a low-key, effective performance here. He's mostly a straight man for the zany people who surround him, though he does eventually have a memorable breakdown in a furniture store. His two leading ladies each got Oscar noms and it's a shame that he was denied the same honor as this was a nice departure from his typical fare of the era. Clayburgh is wonderful. She effectively creates a tender, quirky and realistic character; one who is slightly damaged and whom the audience can root for. Her opening line of dialogue is unforgettable! Bergen is also very fine, fearlessly laying out a haughty, problematic and practically tone deaf character who "sings" like a wailing banshee, yet has no idea how wretched she is. Durning (who couldn't look less like Reynolds' brother if he tried!) lends excellent support as does Sternhagen, who plays his match-making wife. Reynolds joins a support group for divorced men that includes several familiar faces from the cinema such as Pendleton and Sanders. (There is one glaring continuity error here, though, in that the editing separates one meeting into two, causing all the men to wear the exact same clothing to two meetings in a row.) Place has an amusing cameo as one of Reynolds' early dates. Despite a few dated trappings, this film still offers worthwhile ruminations and examinations of the emotions and compromises that go into making a relationship work. The humor is mostly gentle, with the exception of Bergen's hysterical songs. The director, Pakula, was someone that A-list stars loved to work for, right up until his untimely death in a car accident.

Ed Uyeshima Just coming off producing and writing the classic sitcoms, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Taxi", James L. Brooks wrote the screenplay, his first, for this 1979 divorce comedy. Even after all these years and finally out on DVD, it remains funny, perceptive and thoroughly engaging in a way that later crystallized into Brooks' film-making trademark in "Terms of Endearment" and "As Good As It Gets". Fortunately, the director is the accomplished Alan J. Pakula, who shows a flair for romantic comedy coaxing excellent performances from the three stars.The plot centers on Phil Potter, a magazine writer-turned-writing teacher who has been informed by his beautiful but flaky wife Jessica that she wants a divorce. Without much recourse, he seeks solace from his bear-hugging psychiatrist brother Mickey and sister-in-law Marva, who eventually set him up on a blind date with Marilyn, a mild-mannered, rather dowdy nursery schoolteacher. The movie then becomes a clever seesaw of Phil vacillating between his wife and potential new love interest. What remains fresh about the movie is how Pakula and Brooks keep the focus on the flawed characters and less on the predictable clichés about the awkward consequences of divorce.Even taking into account his comeback turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 "Boogie Nights", I doubt if Burt Reynolds has given a more subtle, genuinely humane performance than he does here. Cast completely against type (he was in his Smokey/Hooper/Sharkey action phase at the time), he makes Phil's uncertainty feel real - even at the risk of losing audience sympathy in the way he treats Marilyn no matter how inadvertently. In the afterglow of her brilliant work in Paul Mazursky's "An Unmarried Woman", Jill Clayburgh again demonstrates the malleable quality and fierce intelligence to make her deglamorized Marilyn an attractive and credibly cautious woman. In a revelation before her long, successful run as "Murphy Brown", a deadpan Candice Bergen breaks free from her heretofore vacuously decorative roles and supplies the movie's biggest laughs as the narcissistic Jessica, especially when she sings with uproariously tone-deaf panache to seduce Phil in her hotel room.There is also a terrific supporting cast - Charles Durning bringing out all the unctuous support that Mickey can muster; a scene-stealing Frances Sternhagen as Marva, more than anxious to provide Phil emotional support when he is down and out; Austin Pendleton as a needy member of Phil's divorced men's club, who keeps remarrying his ex-wife; and Mary Kay Place in a funny cameo as Phil's aggressive first post-marital date. Other than Marilyn's unflattering outfits (the orange down jacket is hideous), Marvin Hamlisch's seventies-lite pop music is really the only significant element that dates the movie severely. The divorced men's club meeting scenes are hilarious, and you can see Jay O. Sanders and Wallace Shawn as fellow members. Unlike other romantic comedies of the period full of I'm-OK-You're-OK pop psychology, this one is still well worth viewing.