Five Easy Pieces-1970

Director Bob Rafelson

Starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black

Scott’s Review #101

Reviewed July 10, 2014

Grade: A-

Five Easy Pieces (1970) is Jack Nicholson’s first leading role and, as one watches the film now, it is evident that the character of Bobby Dupea influenced many of his later performances.

The film is a quiet, character study about a talented yet unhappy concert pianist who gives up his privileged life of affluence and performing to lead a simple, blue-collar life working on an oil rig and dating a neurotic lonely waitress played wonderfully by Karen Black.

He returns, via a road trip, to his upper-class family to visit his ailing father.

With Black in tow, they travel from California to remote Washington, with a couple of excellent scenes involving two angry at-life female hitchhikers, and a cold waitress at a coffee shop where Nicholson performs his infamous “chicken sandwich” scene.

It is a story of one man’s loneliness and his conflict between the two lives he has lived and his turmoil at deciding where he belongs- a conflict many people wrestle with.

He is not a happy man.

Karen Black is excellent as the needy, clingy girlfriend and Sally Struthers has a small, yet interesting part as a flirtatious girl.

The film drags at times, moving very slowly, but does an excellent job of getting inside one man’s mind and sharing the pain with the audience.

The film is nuanced as the conflict Dupea feels pulls at his very being and this is conveyed incredibly well. The final scene is simply mesmerizing in its power.

Five Easy Pieces (1970) is a purely character-driven and wonderfully life-questioning film.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor-Jack Nicholson, Best Supporting Actress-Karen Black, Best Story or Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced