STARTING OVER aced a 1979 win for its stars, writer, director and the lucky audiences who walked out of the year’s 24th most popular movie in a good mood, whether they saw it alone, with friends or as a couple. As to coupledom, singlehood and getting into or out of either, this comedy for grownups had timing as well as talent in its favor. The rate of sheet-splitting spiked up in the late 70’s, enough that it was dubbed the “divorce boom” and ’79 saw wounded middle-aged adults figuring in Kramer vs. Kramer, Chapter Two, Manhattan and Chilly Scenes Of Winter. They all have merit; less self-conscious than the others, Starting Over rates as the gentlest and most purely enjoyable.

“Anybody have a Valium?”

‘Phil Potter’ (Burt Reynolds), in rocky recovery after his divorce, has a solace set-up from his happily matched brother and sister-in-law (Charles Durning and Frances Sternhagen), a blind date with ‘Marilyn Homberg’ (Jill Clayburgh), a nursery school teacher who’s patient with kids but nervous with men after too many false starts. The jitters-bugged singles seem destined to duo, then Phil’s ex ‘Jessica’ (Candice Bergen) hints at a rebound. Is neurosis a virus?

Sharp, extremely successful TV writer James L. Brooks (Room 222, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) made his feature film bow adapting Dan Wakefield’s novel. Direction was entrusted to frequent home run batter Alan J. Pakula. Clayburgh, 34, was fresh off three hits in a row (Silver Streak, Semi-Tough–with Burt, and what would be her signature scoop, An Unmarried Woman, which front-ranked her with an Oscar nomination). Her sweet smarts in this role earned another Best Actress nomination. After a dozen years alternating wins (The Sand Pebbles, Carnal Knowledge, The Wind And The Lion) with woofs (Soldier Blue, The Hunting Party, Oliver’s Story) and much oversite slighting from snide critics, Bergen, 32, struck comedienne gold uncovering this nugget, and joined Clayburgh at the Oscar hopeful circle, hers in the Supporting Actress category. She’s wonderfully loopy belting out several awful songs, committing musical homicide with  “It’s gonna be easy for you/ To do what you got to do/ Stand up on your own/ You got it made/It’s gonna be harder for me/ But this woman’s, Got a right to be/ More than, A shadow of her man…”

Reynolds, 42, in the middle of a ten-year hot streak, shaved the devil-may-care stash, dropped the wink-wink jazz and gives his best-ever comic performance, low-key deadpan mixed with just the right layer of poignancy. His wounded Everyman romantic bridges the A-team of cocksure studs from Deliverance and The Longest Yard and the weary been-there vets of Breaking In and Boogie Nights.

Choice backup morsels go to Austin Pendleton and Alfie Wise as part of Phil’s mirth-from-misery men’s group (their miniature battle of the sexes with a divorced woman’s group gets some of the funniest moments), and to the great Mary Kay Place, as a toe-in-the-pond date gone wrong/right/wrong. *

“I’m gonna be 72 soon. And still, I’m amazed that the women I meet seem so sure, so certain, about getting involved. You – you have no idea how many women want you when you’re getting old. How many liver-spotted female hands reach out to squeeze the last drops from your body as they go about living longer than we do.”

Pleasantly scored by Marvin Hamlisch, who thankfully didn’t goo it up with cutesy rom-com filler. Carole Bayer Sager wrote the lyrics for Bergen’s songs. A $10,000,000 tag was defiantly snipped off the mattress by a gross of $35,649,000.

“I think you get off on being miserable. And when you’re not miserable, it feels like something’s wrong.”

With Richard Whiting, Jay O. Sanders, Wallace Shawn and Daniel Stern. 105 minutes.

MARILYN: “I understand. It’s too much or it’s too soon. Or you don’t like me enough. Or you like me too much. Or you’re frightened, or you’re guilty. You can’t get it up or out or in or what?”  PHIL: “That just about covers it.”

*—“Where have all the flowers gone“—rewatching this for first time in forty-six years—Holy Gone with the Wind!—brought up, along with laughter and renewed appreciation of the actors and writing, a few reflection points. One was in recalling seeing this with one of my best friends, each of us getting over painful breakups, in a packed and approving theater, with an audience who obviously related and ‘got it’. The other is that the recent revisit coincided with seeing, for the first time, another comedy, Horrible Bosses, made 32 years later (took a while to catch up with that one, too busy living). Granted, the subject matter is different, but the tonal contrast is striking. Starting Over leaves you feeling hopeful. Horrible Bosses is about as much ‘fun’ as A Clockwork Orange. The earlier movie takes an arm-around-the-shoulder-hug approach to shared experience, the newer one feels like it was spewed from an entire society undergoing a divorce, the type that doesn’t hold an olive branch but a hand grenade. Oh, well, time to check the news: I’m sure that will make me feel better…