General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Starting Over

Starting Over is a 1979 American romantic comedy directed by Alan J. Pakula, starring Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, and Candice Bergen, about a divorced magazine writer in Boston who cannot choose between his new girlfriend and his ex-wife. The screenplay was James L. Brooks's first feature film work, adapted from Dan Wakefield's 1973 novel of the same title, and both Clayburgh and Bergen received Academy Award nominations for their performances.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	October 5, 1979 (United States), distributed by Paramount Pictures¹^•²
Director and writers	Directed by Alan J. Pakula; screenplay by James L. Brooks, based on the 1973 novel by Dan Wakefield¹
Running time and rating	105 minutes, rated R¹
Lead cast	Burt Reynolds as Phil Potter, Jill Clayburgh as Marilyn Holmberg, Candice Bergen as Jessica Potter¹
Academy Awards	Nominated for Best Actress (Clayburgh) and Best Supporting Actress (Bergen)¹
Box office	$26.5 million domestic after 52 days, a record for a Paramount fall release; The Numbers lists a final domestic gross of $38,200,000¹^•³
Music	Score and songs by Marvin Hamlisch with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager⁴

Spoilers

Plot

Phil Potter (Burt Reynolds) is a freelance magazine writer whose wife Jessica (Candice Bergen) leaves him in New York to pursue an independent career as a singer-songwriter. He moves to Boston, where his brother Mickey (Charles Durning), a psychiatrist, recommends a support group for divorced men, and his sister-in-law Marva (Frances Sternhagen) frames the end of a marriage as an exciting new beginning.⁴^•⁵

Through his brother, Phil meets Marilyn Holmberg (Jill Clayburgh), a nursery school teacher, and the two begin a cautious relationship. The romance stalls because Phil remains attached to Jessica, and when Jessica decides she wants Phil back, he returns to her, only to question whether he has made the wrong choice.⁵ The film's comedy comes from situations such as Bergen's deliberately off-key singing and Reynolds's near-breakdown while shopping in Bloomingdale's.⁶

Production

Paramount originally launched the project in 1973 with a different creative team: director Arthur Hiller, screenwriter Robert Goldman, and producers Peter Bart and Max Palevsky. The film was eventually made with Pakula directing and producing alongside Brooks, for whom it was the first feature film screenplay; Brooks had previously created the television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.¹^•⁷

Principal photography was scheduled to begin on November 13, 1978, in New York City, where the production used the former Twentieth Century-Fox soundstages on West 54th Street; filming also took place in Boston, Massachusetts, and shooting finished two days ahead of schedule.¹ The crew included the Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist, editor Marion Rothman, and production designer George Jenkins.¹

Marvin Hamlisch wrote the music, with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. The songs include "Better Than Ever," "Easy For You," and the title song, all sung on screen by Candice Bergen, and a version of "The Way We Were."⁴

Reception and box office

The film was a commercial success. A November 29, 1979, Daily Variety report recorded a domestic box office of $26.5 million after fifty-two days in theaters, a record as Paramount's highest-grossing fall release; The Numbers gives a final domestic gross of $38,200,000.¹^•³

Critics were divided but generally favorable. On Metacritic the film scores 64, with four positive reviews, two mixed, and none negative; Variety praised it for taking on marital dissolution from a comic point of view and succeeding admirably, and the Washington Post found Reynolds at a level of proficiency that approached the awesome.⁸ Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film depicts an abandoned man in all his misery while remaining fast and funny.⁸ Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it two stars, arguing that the characters were placed in sitcom situations and that the successful gags came from acute social observation rather than good writing.⁹ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 78% Tomatometer from 9 reviews and a 60% audience score.⁵

Genre context

The film is frequently discussed as a male-led answer to Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman (1978), which also starred Jill Clayburgh; Ebert described Starting Over as made by people who loved that film, with Reynolds playing what could have been called "an unmarried man."⁹ The philosopher Stanley Cavell, who defined the classical "comedy of remarriage" genre, counted Starting Over among the later films in that tradition, alongside titles such as Moonstruck and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.¹⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1970s › Released 1977 to 1979

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?