Starting Over (1979)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Alan J. Pakula

Writers:

James L. Brooks (writer)
Dan Wakefield (novel)

Release Date:

15 February 1980 (Australia)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Phil Potter would like to straighten out his life...One way, or the other.

Plot:

A divorced man falls in love, but somehow he can't get over his ex-wife. This effects his love life in comic ways. Based on Dan Wakefield's novel.

Plot Keywords:

Divorcé | Thanksgiving | Human Relationship | Support Group | Christmas

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 nominations

Cast

Burt Reynolds	...	Phil Potter
Jill Clayburgh	...	Marilyn Holmberg
Candice Bergen	...	Jessica Potter
Charles Durning	...	Michael (Mickey) Potter
Frances Sternhagen	...	Marva Potter
Austin Pendleton	...	Paul
Mary Kay Place	...	Marie
MacIntyre Dixon	...	Dan Ryan
Jay O. Sanders	...	Larry (as Jay Sanders)
Charles Kimbrough	...	Salesman
Richard Whiting	...	Everett
Alfie Wise	...	Workshop Member
Wallace Shawn	...	Workshop Member
Sturgis Warner	...	John Morganson
Mary Catherine Wright	...	Student 1 (as Mary C. Wright)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:M | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Norway:16 | USA:R | UK:AA (original rating) | UK:15 (re-rating) (1987)

Filming Locations:

Boston Garden - 150 Causeway Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Century Associates

Trivia:

One of the locations was an actual apartment building in New York City. Tenants were upset because they were forbidden from entering or leaving their apartments while scenes were shot in the hallway.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Jessica and Phil prepare to go to bed, he slips off underwear below bottom frame line. But as shot continues, actor Burt Reynolds is clearly wearing abbreviated white undergarment.

Quotes:

Marilyn Holmberg: What do you want?
Phil Potter: I want us to live together. I want us to get married. I want us to have children together. I want us to put our teeth in the same cup. I want us buried together in a family plot with one headstone. What do you want?
Marilyn Holmberg: I want a separate cup for my teeth.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Golden Girls: Ladies of the Evening (#2.2)" (1986)

Soundtrack:

Starting Over

Good, but perhaps not quite good enough

It's part of movie lore that Burt Reynolds' career hit the toilet the moment he decided to do Stroker Ace instead of Terms of Endearment, but what people forget is that his previous collaboration with James L. Brooks, on the Alan J. Pakula-directed Starting Over, didn't exactly set the box-office on fire. At the time industry pundits claimed it was because he shaved his 'tache for the film (no, really) but in retrospect it's probably more because this often feels a bit like a superior Lifetime TV movie, the kind of film you won't mind watching if it's on and you have nothing better to do but which you wouldn't actively seek out. There are good moments and good performances (both Candice Bergen, who delivers a trio of memorably awful songs with unashamed – intentional - incompetence and Jill Clayburgh were Oscar nominated as the ex-wife and new woman in unwilling divorcée Reynolds' life, while Charles Durning is on good understated form as his psychiatrist brother), but for all the care with which its made it just never quite catches fire.