Starting Over (1979)

“If I don’t touch you soon I’ll go out of my mind. ” – Phil

Number of Times Seen – 1 (19 Apr 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A recently divorced man moves from New York to Boston in order to start his life again.

My Take on it – This is a film that I recently heard about and became quite intrigued to see how it would be presented being that I know what it’s like to deal with life after a divorce.

The cats of Burt Reynolds, Candice Bergen and Jill Clayburgh is quite good here but they play their characters too distant that it’s harder to identify with everything they are all going through.

Reynolds was a great casting choice here because his character is so very different from many of the roles he is known for.

I must say that I’m a bit perplexed as to how both women were able to get Oscar nominations for their roles here since I felt neither one particularly stood out as anything special.

The story is a bit too choppy and cuts between scenes and locations a bit too quickly as if they are in a hurry to get things moving.

Not as special as I would have hoped t would have been.

Bottom Line – Love the idea here especially because I’ve gone through some of the things described here personally.  The problem here is that the story feel a bit too choppy and as much as I wanted to identify more with the characters, they felt too distant.  Reynolds is great here because this role is so very different from most of the roles he played over the years.  Clayburgh and Bergen are both fine here, but I’m a bit perplexed as to how they both managed to get Oscar nominations for their roles.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Originally director Alan J. Pakula did not want Burt Reynolds for the Phil Potter part, feeling he was not the right type; he wanted a more New York-trained actor along the lines of Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman. But Reynolds lobbied hard for the role and Pakula finally let him audition. After two auditions, Reynolds had the role and Pakula subsequently has praised his work in the film. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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