Burt Reynolds, like Charles Bronson, is a movie star locked in the 1970s and 1980s. Maybe less than Bronson, who was already old when he became a draw, but Reynolds was no prodigy; then again, neither was John Wayne, and both wore hairpieces by the time they were world-famous. Bronson also got trapped in the Death Wish franchise and its attendant knockoffs. Even a great movie like Richard Fleischer’s Mr. Majestyk, released the same year as Death Wish, is still a revenge film, or a “revenge-a-matic” as Quentin Tarantino calls them. Reynolds was never praised as a great actor, but he had more range than Bronson. Steve McQueen? Reynolds wasn’t as good as McQueen. But someone had to die of cancer at 50.
How many people on the street today know who James Cagney is? John Wayne? John Ford? Bob Dylan? Fewer and fewer every year, which should be comforting for everyone. Reynolds had notable roles into the 1990s, climaxing with Boogie Nights in 1997. However much he hated “runt” Paul Thomas Anderson, that would become his last great role. His death in September 2018 left Once Upon a Time in Hollywood without one of its essential layers: Reynolds was going to play George Spahn, not Bruce Dern—and of course Tarantino says Reynolds’ last performance in front of an audience was the table read for his movie. He’s not wrong.
Burt Reynolds has been dead for six years. In 1979, he was continuing his quest to avoid being typecast. Sue Mengers, his agent, thought he was insane for desperately seeking the lead in Starting Over, adapted from Dan Wakefield’s 1972 novel by James L. Brooks and directed by Alan J. Pakula. Post-paranoia trilogy and pre-Sophie’s Choice, Pakula isn’t recognizable in this film as auteur, allowing cinematographer Sven Nykvist to define the mood and essentially copy what Woody Allen did in Annie Hall and Interiors. This movie doesn’t look as good as either of those, nor does it look as good as any of the films that Brooks would go on to write and direct himself, from Terms of Endearment to Broadcast News to As Good as it Gets to Spanglish.
Brooks is the clear auteur of Starting Over. It’s not just the writing that screams GRACIE FILMS, it’s the blocking, the delivery, the shot composition, the montage. Everything is so much closer to the beautiful hyperreal worlds that Brooks would direct and the insight and alacrity of the cartoon that he still produces, The Simpsons: mall shoppers eager to give their Valium to an ailing Reynolds, Candice Bergen’s painfully mediocre songwriting and awful voice, the fact that she then becomes a star despite that, and Reynolds can’t go anywhere without hearing the new hit by his new ex-wife.
Jill Clayburgh is the shooting star of Starting Over, giving a performance every bit as effervescent and real as Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, and in the same league as Helen Hunt in As Good as it Gets. Both are real women with live wire tempers conflicted about their attraction to older, ornery men. What makes Brooks Brooks, what makes “the Brooksian touch,” is his ability to turn cliche into supercharged reality: “I don’t breathe when you’re not around. I just breathe right when you’re here.” That’s not an easy line to write or pull off without looking ridiculous. But neither is “You make me want to be a better man.” Terms of Endearment is widely recognized along with Brooks’ other directorial efforts, but his real debut is Starting Over.
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