Review of Five Easy Pieces (1970) by John M — 18 Feb 2008

[font=Arial][size=3]A movie to see when you are young, to reaffirm your narcissistic sense of self with its endless promise of fulfillment. Watch it at my age (64) and the mirror image of your blind barbarism sickens you. [/size][/font].

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[font=Arial][size=3]I am raging against myself, not the movie. The writer and director and star have captured brilliantly a time of life and a state of mind that is the moral equivalent of crack cocaine addiction. I destroyed my marriage and family this way, and the film is such a perfect re-creation of my mindset at that time.[/size][/font].

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[font=Arial][size=3]I have seldom felt such strong revulsion at the opening scenes of a movie: the Jack Nicholson character's sadistic brutalization of a patient, good-hearted woman with a sweet disposition, who also happens to be congenitaly faithful and drop-dead gorgeous. Been there; done that. And the fact that I had a gentler style did not make it really any better.[/size][/font].

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[font=Arial][size=3]In scenes near the end she tells him truly, "You know no one is going to take as good care of you as I am", but even after he is rejected by an intellectual and cultural equal whose love could have validated his pretentions, this tantrum-throwing man-child still doesn't get it. [/size][/font].

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[font=Arial][size=3]The final scene, with the Karen Black character, his loving Rayette, searching hopelessly for him in the fog at the gas station, is maybe the saddest moment I have seen in any film. [/size][/font].

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[font=Arial][size=3]Jack Nicholson delivers a brilliant portrait of somebody becoming nobody.[/size][/font].