A key American film of its era, Bob Rafelson's moody, character-driven tale of an upper-middle class dropout established Jack Nicholson as the foremost actor of his generation in articulating the values of the new generation.
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 28
Fresh: 23
Rotten:5
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: FIVE EASY PIECES is one of the most notable collaborations between Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson, with Nicholson in an outstanding performance as Bobby Dupea. In the film, Rafelson and... FIVE EASY PIECES is one of the most notable collaborations between Jack Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson, with Nicholson in an outstanding performance as Bobby Dupea. In the film, Rafelson and Nicholson capture the difficult, awkward life of a gifted man who hasn't discovered a way to fully express his talent or found his place in the world--and maybe never will. Bobby is a classic misfit--disillusioned about being a musician, unhappy as an oil rigger, and unable to make a commitment to his girlfriend, Rayette, who hopes for marriage. When he visits his family home on Puget Sound after a long absence, things don't get better. Bobby hates the repressive atmosphere: his brother is unbearable, his father can't speak, and his sister is involved with his father's supercilious male nurse. When Bobby sets his sights on his brother's fiancée, Catherine Van Ost (movingly played by the beautiful Susan Anspach), things seem to be getting better--that is, until Rayette arrives and Bobby realizes he is caught in a collision between his two lives. The film features characteristically gorgeous cinematography from Laszlo Kovaks and a soundtrack that skillfully offsets Tammy Wynette with Chopin. FIVE EASY PIECES is a riveting American story about a former musical ingénue whose gift becomes a burden to him as he grapples with the implications of his choices in work, relationships, and family. [More]
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers, Billy "Green" Bush, Fannie Flagg, Marlena MacGuire, Richard Stahl, Lois Smith, Helena Kallianiotes, Toni Basil, Lorna Thayer, Ralph Waite, William Challee, John Ryan, Irene Dailey
Director: Bob Rafelson
Director: Bob Rafelson
Screenwriter: Bob Rafelson, Adrien Joyce
Producer: Richard Wechsler
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Reviews for Five Easy Pieces
Bobby can be seen as spiritual descendant of Melville's scrivener Bartleby, preferring not to participate in a world to which he doesn't subscribe.
Jack Nicholson shines in the film that helped cement his reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation.
This episodic character study is one of the key American films of its era.
The film's nervewracking quality is consistent with its content. Nicholson's performance is a remarkably varied and daring exploration of a complex character, equally convincing in its manic and sober aspects.
The film embraces proletarian chic but still gets its laughs by abusing waitresses.
The result is less a story and more a collection of incidents and character studies, all of which inform each other and extend our understanding of Nicholson's mode of survival: flight.
It hasn't aged as well as some of its 1970s counterparts, but it's still a heartbreaking film and a minor classic.
Rafelson is expert at supporting this movement, and the film proceeds from scene to scene with a quiet competent modernism that bespeaks quality, but that more often begs than provides expression.
We'd had a revelation. This was the direction American movies should take: Into idiosyncratic characters, into dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate, into a plot free to surprise us about the characters, into an existential ending.
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