Five Easy Pieces (1970) Poster

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8/10
Not pleasant but very well written and acted.
planktonrules12 January 2013
"Five Easy Pieces" is a very unusual film because the star (Jack Nicholson) plays an incredibly unlikable guy. Robert badly mistreats his girlfriend, Rayett (Karen Black), and cheats on her. She IS often annoying and slow, but he chose to live with her and spends much of his time making fun of or ignoring her. He's easily bored and prone to self-defeating and selfish behaviors because he's emotionally stunted--unable to really love anyone.

This is also an unusual film because it doesn't have a traditional plot. Much of it spent just watching the man go through life. The main focus of the film, when it does occur, is Robert returning home to visit his family. The father is quite ill and it's obvious Robert does NOT want to visit and is only doing so out of obligation. But, guilted into this, he goes. There, you learn that the family is full of gifted musicians and intellectuals--and Robert is very ill-at-ease in this environment--and seeing these folks, it is understandable. They are about as unlike him as possible.

If a psychotherapist watched this film and wanted to form a diagnosis of the two main characters, they would probably see Robert as a relatively high functioning antisocial personality (meaning, his violations of laws and norms are usually NOT the sort to get him imprisoned) and Rayette as a Dependent Personality. Dependents NEED someone to love them--even if that person is abusive and distant. Like a whipped dog, they wait and hope to get an occasional bone tossed their way in the form of a kind word here or there. And, they are quite sad to see. Because these two were done so realistically, you have to admire the writing of this film.

Overall, a very well written film. In spots, it's VERY enjoyable (such as the famous diner scene) and in others, it's very painful. To carry it off, the actors (particularly Nicholson and Black) are at the top of their game. Also, the musical choices were wonderful. Playing all the low self-esteem Tammy Wynette songs (such as "Stand By Your Man") seem to be perfect to describe Rayette's life.
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6/10
Adolescent
barberoux30 July 2003
`Five Easy Pieces' is basically a youth movie. Jack Nicholson plays a young man who leaves his cultured home to work on oilrigs in Texas. He is crude and lives his life around getting drunk and picking up dippy young girls, (well played by Sally Struthers). He lives with Rayette, an uneducated waitress, who he mistreats. He mistreats most people in this movie relying on his charm to get through life. He makes fun of his brother, Carl, and has sex with his fiancé. I did not like the character of Robert Dupea. He used people then abandoned them when things got too serious. He could not accept any responsibility and looked for the easy way to live life. That is why it was a youth movie. It had this adolescent view of life. His family was portrayed as pompous creatures and his contempt for Rayette was obvious. Rayette, wonderfully played by Karen Black, was the most honest person in the movie but she was an object of derision because she was uneducated. Robert's treatment of her was contemptible. Robert cared for no one but Robert. Did he leave home to find himself? The self he found was crude and self-centered and was probably the cause of his disillusionment. His meaningful mirror gazing was more self-loathing than anything. He really needed to grow up
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8/10
The pianist
jotix10014 February 2006
"Five Easy Pieces" was one of the most revered films of the 1970s. It was the film that showed audiences what Jack Nicholson could do, after having worked for many years in movies that were seen only by real cinephiles, but not by a wider audiences. Not having seen the film in a long time, we decided to watch it when it showed on cable recently. The only thing is the copy we saw was not anamorphic in format, which on key scenes almost shows a blank screen while the characters talk off camera!

Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman created a screen play that dealt with existential themes, a rarity in the American cinema. Mr. Rafelson was at the height of his creative period, something that later projects seem to contradict the promise he showed at the time.

Bobby Dupea, the main character of the story, is a complex individual who has left a life of privilege and culture behind to become an oil rig worker and getting away from his previous life. At the time we meet him, he is involved with Rayette, a simple woman who loves him, but one can see how different they are. That contrast comes more obvious when Bobby goes back home and meets Catherine, his brother's fiancée, who is a musician and seem to be more attuned with Bobby than the simple minded Rayette.

"Five Easy Pieces" was a film that showcased the enormously talented Jack Nicholson doing some interesting work. The measure of his acting ability is seen about half way in the movie as Bobby, Rayette, and the two lesbian hitchhikers have stopped at a diner. Bobby's meal order request creates a match of words in which Mr. Nicholson shows what he is capable of doing.

The film concludes with a puzzling scene, as Bobby and Rayette are heading back home. We watch them stopping at a gas station and little prepares us for what happens next. In a way, we have seen all along the film how restless Bobby has become and it's clear that in spite of his being with Rayette, she will never understands how to make him happy at all.

The reason for watching "Five Easy Pieces" is Jack Nicholson. His character is the most interesting one in the film and he does an excellent job in creating the tension behind this complex man he portraits. Karen Black's Rayette is annoying at times because of her whining. Susan Anspach comes out better playing Catherine. Some other familiar faces in the cast are, Sally Struthers, Ralph White, Lois Smith, Billy Green Bush and Fannie Flagg.

"Five Easy Pieces" is one of the best films of that decade.
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9/10
They missed the point.
ricaltman7 August 2022
Had fun reading about 30 of the negative reviews. It's nice that people who live in such a perfect world that they don't believe the character flaws examined in this movie exist. Many of us have gone through much of what Bobby Dupea has. Self doubt, poor choices and being born into a family whose lifestyle we reject which results in us not being as good of a person as we would have liked. Bobby knows he is toxic but is unable or unwilling to change. Nicholson's acting is near perfect but occasionally off (think Chinatown for perfect) making it his arguably his second best. Bobby is largely a disgusting prick, but you occasionally have misplaced hope and empathy for him. The movie sticks with me and resonates 52 years later, I guess because I see some of myself in Bobby Dupree. Bobby's badly damaged character is an indictment of some of us. If movies matter to you, see it. You won't feel warm and fuzzy, but you will get a good look at life that hopefully you don't see from your vantage point.
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10/10
A very complex and deep character study...
Don-1028 January 1999
Bob Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES is about inner pain and suffering that just so happens to consume people in all walks of life. It is sometimes hard to watch and Nicholson's character "Robert" is a miserable SOB. However, he is also a very compelling character who affects all around him. He is lonely, he is scared, and he does not know what to do with himself.

If you are looking for plot, this is not the picture for you. The only remnants of a plot concern Nicholson's father, a distant memory of his previous prestigious lifestyle as a classical pianist, who has fallen sick. Jack decides to visit his family's estate to pay his last respects. This sets the forum of emotional indifference and misery. He hates his old life, which he left to become a construction worker and has taken up with a flighty waitress played brilliantly by Karen Black. He pretends to enjoy this simple way of living, but he treats Black like the trash he considers her to be and could care less about anyone.

Why should anyone see this film? Because Jack Nicholson is one of our greatest actors and he is able to transcend what was put on paper regarding the main character and project raw power and feelings in his own, unique way. The movie is littered with classic scenes, in particular, the chicken salad sandwich scene, one of the funniest I've ever seen. The one I feel that stands out and symbolizes the essence of the film is where Jack plays Chopin in the piano room while Rafelson's camera does a slow 360 around the room, glancing at pictures of his life before he fled from it. It is a perfect mixture of intensity, music, and sadness.

The last scene, which ends so abruptly, makes perfect sense within this context. It leaves us feeling empty and unfulfilled, exactly how Nicholson's character feels. This is what makes this character piece all the more powerful.
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Can't believe How this film is misinterpreted
hitek-5761920 September 2021
After reading all of the reviews listed here on IMDB, it is incomprehensible to me that not one has grasped the point of the story. This is in spite of the title giving the whole thing away. Come on now guys... The movie is titled Five Easy Pieces because that's all the Jack Nicholson character could play. The pieces are classical, true, and great examples of classics. However, they are evidently not among the most difficult pieces.

I am astonished that several reviewers wondered why he would give up such a great chance to be a classical musician. Why did he reject his talented and maybe wealthy family to hob nob with those having little or no appreciation of classical music or the life style? (As more than one of the reviewers said.) He left his family home and tried to lose himself because he did simply not have the talent to pursue a career as a concert pianist. He clearly could play well, but this is not the same as having the talent to perform professionally. His sister, Partita, gives us the example of one who does meet those standards, as well as his brother, Carl Fidelio.

What does one do when he just can't do what is expected no matter how hard he tries? He moves from place to place and from person to person because nothing and no one can help him overcome his failure.
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6/10
Smaller than the sum of its parts, but . . .
jannings19 February 2006
"Five Easy Pieces" is one of those "flawed" movies that has several excellent scenes, some outstanding performances, and very often features ingenious direction. But the sum never equals the many great parts. Why? For one thing, character motivations are often opaque. Even the character of Bobby, whom Jack Nicholson plays brilliantly, remains a mosaic rather than an intelligible entity. The closest the movie comes to figuring out Bobby is when Catherine van Oost (played, again brilliantly, by Susan Anspach) dices and slices him into many more than five tiny little pieces. "Why should I go with you?" she asks him. "If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something--how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?" Bobby is left muttering something like "Well, ah . . . I could make you happy." But he realizes she's right. The audience, unfortunately, realized the same thing about an hour earlier.

The editing by Christopher Holmes and Gerald Shepard is first-class—but the best part of the movie is Bob Rafelson's directing. I mean, what a vision this man had! It stretches from what look like Gulf Coast oil fields to Los Angeles to Vancouver Island (or places remarkably similar). The extremely difficult traffic sequences--even the ones on the ferry boats--flow seamlessly. And the "road movie" section from L.A. to Vancouver with Helena Kallianiotis as the utterly bizarre, hygiene-obsessed lesbian is a masterpiece. In every location, Rafelson has everything under control, yet he allowed actors a wide berth to expand the rather abstract characters assigned them. The movie is worth watching for both its flaws and its inconsistencies. Not a great movie, but worth watching, thinking about, and rediscovering.
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10/10
One Of The All-Time Greatest Films
tightspotkilo28 September 2005
This film is a classic because it operates and works on every level imaginable, a truly evocative film. Other posters have elucidated upon and discussed the musicology of it, and the significance of Chopin. I'll take their word for it, and not go there. That's out of my league. And, as others have noted, the film is an exploration and study of character, which it certainly is. All that and more. I see the film as being in its own way a period piece unto itself, the period being films made in the late 60s and early 70s. It is quintessentially representative of what was an important movie circa 1970. Of course the storyline of an alienated young man (Jack Nicholson as Robert Dupea), walking away from all that is expected of him, and indeed walking away --if not running away-- from his prodigious gifts, and doing it all with a cocky attitude, no longer resonates quite the way it did in 1970. But, if you weren't around in 1970, trust me, it resonated well then. It was a theme that seemed important and meaningful at the time, even though the character's motivations for his actions are never really explained and remain something of a blank slate for the viewer to fill in. In 1970, when the concept of an "identity crises" was big, it worked to just suggest and imply that Dupea felt the need to Quixotically search out and determine for himself what was important for him. That dovetailed with another important component in many movies of that era --you never explain yourself, because if you explain things, you trivialize it all and ruin it. Or, as Jenny, Ali McGraw's character in Love Story (also a 1970 film) put it, "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Meanwhile, unfolding alongside the Dupea character, was Karen Black's tour de force performance as the big-haired clingy-dependent waitress girlfriend, Rayette, and doing it to a medley of apropos Tammy Wynette tunes. Karen Black's performance perfectly captured and spot-on nailed an almost ubiquitous sort of woman prevalent in that era, when the social changes wrought by the women's movement had not yet taken fruit.

As for the notorious diner scene, this one scene essentially dominates the whole movie. It is something that people who have seen the movie will bring up and talk about, even decades later. Yet the scene is in no way pivotal or important to the story. At most it once and for all permanently affixes in the viewers' minds that Dupea was an impulsively flippant and angry person, not one to meekly abide any of life's minor frustrations. But we were already getting that picture of him before this scene happens. And, courtesy of Dupea, the scene provides a snippet of gratuitous social commentary about inflexibility and the stupidity of mindless adherence to meaningless rules. Something for the viewers to cheer and say, "I can relate to that!" Those things aside, to me the real value of the scene was that it provided an entertaining contrast in a bleak drama, a needed change of pace. But regardless of whether it was a statement about Dupea's attitude, or a social comment about stupid rules, or a needed amusing interlude, no matter which of those it is, its lasting impression renders its importance out of proportion to the movie as a whole. Surely, as he made this film, director Bob Rafelson's never intended that 35 years later this particular scene be the main thing viewers took away and remembered about the film. In this sense, as entertaining as it is, the scene therefore must be viewed as being a bit of a story-telling flaw. In retrospect, it should have been toned down just a skosh. But, then, on the other hand, were it not for this scene, perhaps the film would hardly be remembered at all. It is already a largely overlooked masterpiece.

This movie pops up on the movie channels on a semi-regular basis, and when it does I always stop and am riveted. The cinematography is superb. The acting is superb. Nicholson turning in one of the performances from that era that made him the unhinged star in the first place, long before he became a parody of himself. But be warned, it is not a "happy" film. It is the product of an era that did not as a rule produce happy films. But it is nevertheless a film that must be seen.
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7/10
Story of a man who rejects anyone who loves him for no reason
badman-221 December 1998
Karen Black is great in this film and well-deserving of The Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She steals the film from her moody and brooding co-star, Jack Nicholson. Put it this way: subtract Black from the film and you don't have a film worth watching. The story would have been better if the film had told us why Nicholson rejected his family and his musical gifts. Why does he hate everyone that loves him? He doesn't love himself. Why? Why should we sympathize with this man? He has a great girlfriend, a rich family that cares for him, and tremendous natural gifts to play the piano. The last scene in the movie is one of the most pathetic scenes ever filmed. Someone needs to slap Jack and tell him to wake up!! Please!!!
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10/10
Definitely one of the great American films.
zetes31 January 2005
This movie is most famous for a scene in which Jack Nicholson tells a waitress to hold the chicken salad between her knees so he can get some plain wheat toast, but, in a movie as good as this, that very famous scene may be its least memorable one. After that scene, I hadn't heard anything about what this film was really about, and its depth and power took me completely by surprise. It's a story of a man trapped in his own life, unable to find a place to settle. All the locations at which he has arrived have lead to nothing but disappointment and the realization that there just might not be a life for him. God, how I can sympathize. Just as I was starting to question whether Nicholson was as good an actor as everybody seems to think he is, I've come upon his very best performance. Karen Black plays his girlfriend, a hick who loves him to death. He's not sure if she's good enough for him, or vice versa. Lois Smith, Ralph Waite, and Susan Anspach give good supporting performances. A flat-out masterpiece.
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6/10
Five Easy Pieces is just not a movie for me.
kleinalex-3100612 December 2018
I honestly wanted to like this movie more than I did. The problem was the main character Bobby Eroica Dupea played by Jack Nicholson. I just didn't like him, he had his comedic and redeemable moments, but most of the time he just a huge jerk and not in the charismatic likeable way, more in the pretentious I'm better than you no matter what way.

The most interesting aspect of the movie was understanding the main character and why he's acts the way he does that which, for the most part the movie does well. I also liked the world around him and the grittiness of it. But it just doesn't make up for the fact I disliked the main reason why people love this movie.
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9/10
A masterpiece
paul2001sw-120 May 2004
Previously known only for creating 'The Monkees', Bob Rafelson produced an underrated masterpiece when he made 'Five Easy Pieces', a film that deserves to be a lot better known. Jack Nicholson, typically intense but atypically understated, has possibly his finest hour as Bobby Duprea, a self-hating misogynist ill at ease with himself and the world. Many people will, when thinking of Nicholson, bring to mind his pantomime pyschopath Johnny from 'The Shining'; but Bobby, a profoundly human creation, is actually far more scary. Elsewhere the film features characteristically gorgeous cinematography from Laszlo Kovaks; a soundtrack that skilfully offsets Tammy Wynette and Chopin; excellent writing throughout and some very black humour. Like a less extreme version of Mike Leigh's 'Naked', and bristling with uncomfortable truth, 'Five Easy Pieces' is a true classic of 1970s cinema. Few films today are as good.
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6/10
Two Hours For This???
cfazzari30 January 2004
This is a two-hour film that could have been made into a 30 minute film. Catherine's little speech could have summed it up:

"You're a strange person, Robert. I mean, what will you come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something -- how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?"

Even the ending leaves you thinking that this guy has learned nothing, has not grown at all, and is now drifting north, for no particular reason...
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5/10
No Change 35 Years Later
JCBar18 August 2005
I saw this film when it first came out, and at the time didn't understand the critics' raves and whatnot. Thirty-five years later I decided to see what a callow youth missed (as he viewed it in a drive-in with his own Lucky Lager between his knees). I'm sorry to say that I have not learned much – the movie still seems one of the most overrated 'classics' designated as such.

The scenes do not move smoothly; the locations are what, where? Texas? California? How does he get between the two locations so fast in one of the early scenes? How is the meeting with the two tarts arranged? Other scenes' inclusions are hard to understand - why the one scene with his friend's arrest, and the later one with the intellectuals in his family's home? Just so he can defend his girlfriend and shout at a particularly pompous one, and then go chasing after his brother's girlfriend? Which brings me to - why is this guy seen as charming? He is basically a condescending (to both 'classes' he associates with) hedonist, bored with whatever he chases after. By the end of the film he has learned nothing; except to find another way to humiliate a person who is absolutely dedicated to him. Which can be all right – after all the film doesn't have to be about a wonderful person – but the film could be accepted more easily if it showed these actions in a more coherent, logical manner. And I know the arguments about 'life not always being coherent or logical', but I think films can be.

I also remember rave reviews 30+ years ago concerning the performance of Helen Kallianiotes, playing a hitchhiker. The second time around the performance just comes off as mannered, obnoxious, and unnecessary. Her appearance simply acts as a vignette used as a setup for the famous restaurant scene, which itself appears just to be a setup so Nicholson's character can humiliate yet another 'blue collar' type on his way to 'finding himself'.

I found most of the scenes somewhat boring – and most of the angst portrayed as affected and unconvincing. I'm somewhat uplifted to find that possibly I wasn't as callow a youth as I thought; worse yet however, maybe I'm just as callow as an old man
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10/10
Robert Dupea As A Creative Personality
Doc-1342 June 1999
In discussing films with extraordinary characterization, Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces" is an exemplary example. The film is an intense character study of an alienated, misfit drifter who seems to have no specific direction or place in life. Jack Nicholson brings to life Robert Dupea, a man who has considerable natural musical talent, but has rejected that life and his family who is also musically talented. There are hints throughout the film that Robert had great promise as a concert pianist if only he had stuck with it. He contains many of the creative personality characteristics that would predispose him to musical greatness. Psychologists who study creativity have found that generally creative people contain a number of specific personality characteristics. Robert contains many of them, but has generally abandoned creating anything.

I would first like to comment on why I feel the film received the title, "Five Easy Pieces". I at first thought that it might be because Robert plays piano five times throughout the film. But in a second viewing, I counted and he only played piano four times, including the time where he mimics playing the piano at the dinner table when discussing his experience playing in Las Vegas. I pondered a little further and realized that the title was likely spawned from the five classical pieces listed in the introductory credits; Chopin's Fantasy in F minor, Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, Mozart's E-flat major concerto, Chopin's Prelude in E minor, and finally Mozart's Fantasy in D minor. I myself am not a musician, but other people who do play music have told me that these pieces are somewhat difficult to play. But Robert can sit down and play them with no problem. In this sense, the title "Five Easy Pieces" is somewhat ironic.

One of the main characteristics of creative people is 'alienation'. I will discuss this concept first because alienation is one of the central themes of the film. The alienation that lies in Robert is a direct result of his lack of direction towards any one particular life. In his case, one life would be the average working class type of person and the other would be that of a musician. Robert seems to be caught somewhere between the two. He came from a talented, musically oriented family and was at one point, a promising pianist, but now engages in a common, working class lifestyle where he drinks beer, bowls, listens to country music and chases after women. But it is evident that he does not feel settled in this lifestyle. He is as much of a misfit among the common community as he is among the musical atmosphere of Puget Sound. In essence, he is a nowhere type of man.

Robert also displays the personality characteristic of 'naivete', meaning that a person tends to act somewhat child-like. Creative people tend to be quite impulsive and open to emotional display, and are quite often labeled as temperamental. Poet, Earl Birney states that "poets might just be people who have not overgrown their love for poetry as a child". Many researchers have theorized that the creator is like a child. Schiller argues that you can not create if your intellect (a uniquely adult attribute) hinders you. Another theorist, Osborne argues that to be creative one must eliminate the mature, intellectual attitude, and that creative people are able to resist premature judgements through the use of brainstorming techniques, producing many ideas and alternatives. Freud said that both the child and the creative person are similar in that both have unfulfilled wishes and desires. Satisfied people do not create. He argued that all people need an escape from reality; in adulthood we daydream (play internally) for wish fulfillment, but the creative person keeps it external by creating something such as a symphony, poem, or a painting etc. At many points in "Five Easy Pieces", Robert displays child like behavior. This is characterized most notably in the famous scene where he explodes at a waitress in a diner because the establishment does not have the meal that he desires. He flies into a temper tantrum and sweeps all of the glasses and menus off the table. Another wonderful scene illustrating Robert's naivete is the one when he jumps aboard a truck with a piano in the back and begins playing it during a traffic jam. Creative people, like children are often open to high emotional display, and hence Robert seizes the moment by playing the piano to get his mind off the traffic jam which he has lost patience with. He, like many other creative people is very confident, self assertive, dominant, and independent.

The film's narrative neatly unfolds, Robert's insecurity, another common creative trait. Many great creators have doubts about the quality of their product and the authenticity of their talent, hence the notion that creative people are never satisfied. It is quite evident that Robert has high doubts that he could be a great pianist. This is probably why he ended up being a drifter, choosing the common, trailer park sort of life. There is a scene near the end of the film where Robert is speaking with his father and in a way apologizing for his own life and not living up to the expectations of the family. He states that they both know that Robert is not any good anyway. This is a depiction of his insecurity. But not only is he insecure about his talent as a musician; he is also insecure about his life in general. He is caught somewhere in between two worlds, the world of the common man and the world of the creative musician, and thus is always running away from things as a result.

All of the creative theory aside, "Five Easy Pieces" is very enjoyable on the level of acting. Jack Nicholson nails the character of Robert Dupea dead on. The character called for a certain degree of arrogance and obnoxiousness which are characteristics that we all know that no one can portray better than Jack.

**** out of ****
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When There's a Fire In Your Heart
PeteStud3 September 2003
This incredible movie would have to be one of Jack Nicholson and the totally underrated Karen Black's finest hours (and a half!). This would probably be my favourite movie of all time and though you might find it initially depressing you too will find many instances of black humour with repeated viewings. Everybody and their dog always raves about the chicken salad sandwich diner scene and the dialogue between the main character and his invalid father but for my money the money shot is when Bobby first tells Rayette he has to visit his family ALONE and as he tries to leave without her (which wouldve ended up being the most humane thing he does in the film!!) he finds his car wont start at the crucial moment and he completely loses it in his car cursing a lotta four letter words under his breath. I wont go into the details of what this film is about but its thoroughly entertaining and works on many levels. Fans of this sort of drama should check out WHEN YOU COMIN BACK, RED RYDER as well for superb character breakdowns also. If you thought the main character in Michael Leigh's NAKED was a miserable lost soul on a road to nowhere you aint seen nothing yet til you check out Jack in this!! A complete masterpiece from beginning to end. Great soundtrack with Tammy Wynette by the way and Karen Black shows off her awesome vocal style as well......
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7/10
Character study of a lost soul in post-revolution 1970
Wuchakk24 October 2014
"Five Easy Pieces" (1970) is a well-known drama about Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) who leaves behind his high society upbringing in preference to being a drifter, working on oil fields and so on. When he catches word of his dad's recent illness he drives up to Washington, reluctantly with his bimbo girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black). While there he has a fling with his brother's babe (Susan Anspach).

Although the story is somewhat meandering and contains a few less-than-noble characters, this is a well-done character study of a confused soul who doesn't know what he wants. He sees the pomposity, illusion and pressure that goes with upper-class culture and seeks liberation in the more common, which doesn't wholly inspire him. He has temper tantrums, cheats on his girlfriend, and is basically a problem waiting to happen, although he's not entirely without respectable or likable qualities.

I think the film struck a chord at the time because Robert's plight in the story represented the dilemma of many people after the counter-culture revolution of the 60s. As a society, we threw off the restraints of conventional morality and education to basically have a wild party. But what do you do when the party's over and you're hung over?

The chicken salad scene is infamous and there are quite a few other memorable scenes, like the ultra-cynical hitchhiker with her female pal (Toni Basil). Some characters are intentionally over-the-top, like the overbearing wannabe intellectual at the Dupea residence, but this was done to be amusing. Despite the exaggerations, the characters ring true.

If you like Susan Anspach here be sure to check her out in 1988's "The Legend of Wolf Lodge" (aka "Into the Fire") where she plays a scary housewife who thinks she's hotter than she actually is (see my review), which isn't to say that Susan's not attractive as Catherine in this movie because she definitely is. She has a unique look and intriguing personality. Too bad she shows signs of being a trollop but, then again, it was 1970 and, besides, she felt guilty about her behavior.

Someone said "Five Easy Pieces" is a film you'll enjoy more as you get older and that's the case with me. The first couple of times I viewed it I found it mildly absorbing but was ultimately unimpressed. I didn't get the hype. I saw it for the third time last night and felt it was much better than I remembered. You'll appreciate it more too if you're fairly mature, don't have ADHD, and you understand that it's not a conventional drama with typical contrivances and a charming protagonist. Rather, it's a slice-of-life drama focusing on a confused and sometimes childish individual who isn't always likable. It's equal parts fascinating, insightful, amusing, meandering and pointless.

The film runs 98 minutes and was shot in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Illinois.

GRADE: B+
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8/10
Five Easy Pieces Review
pedroborges-908815 May 2021
This film talk about a lot of important things in life, family, relationship, how we treat people that we should care more and how we treat ourselves, it also talk about the period it was made, it's all there, it's a deep film, for example, the song in the opening credits completely describes Karen Black character.

Jack Nicholson give a very good performance and the cinematography is also very good.
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9/10
A classic of 70's American cinema
pct7 February 1999
This is one of the undoubted classics of 70's American cinema. This is Nickolson at his best, like in The Last Detail, the consummate anti-hero, the film never succumbing to cheap easy glories for its main protagonist. He is the archetypical under-achieving misfit, who may or may not deserve our sympathy. Victim of circumstance or does he bring his own troubles upon himself? No easy answers will be found here. I just regret that Nicholson isn't admired enough for these understated roles, and that Rafelson only came close again in the magnificent King of Marvin Gardens.
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6/10
Was it just Time that passed?
jramalho19 August 2019
On vacation I decided to go through vintage collections, the kind you get because of their significance in film history, and then never seem to have time to watch. Was that the problem here? That I was watching the film decades too late? That there was a power here that I can't really grasp watching it now? It seemed like a collection of vignettes (some very good, others more on the pathetic side) more than a movie, with characters and plot lines discarded left and right. There was some fine acting, but also some straight up bad accents and posing-as-acting that I can't believe weren't laughable even then. And while the script was interesting, and the messages where clear, that was the main issue I had: it spelled out everything, as if unsure the viewer would get it, right up to the mute patriarch that can't provide anything in terms of guidance. There are clear class issues, but everyone is an unhappy screw-up at heart, or oblivious of all the screw-ups out there, was my take home message. That being said the final escape was a bit salvaging point.
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10/10
"stick it between your knees"
lee_eisenberg8 July 2005
In 1969, Jack Nicholson made his big break in "Easy Rider", and the very next year, he got his first lead role in another "easy": "Five Easy Pieces". He plays Robert Eroica "Bobby" Dupea, a man from a well-off musical family. Bobby has given up his potential, choosing instead to work in the oil fields. Angry and with no goal in life, he spends most of his time drinking, partying, and ignoring his girlfriend Rayette Dipesto (Karen Black). Then, his father has a stroke, forcing Bobby to visit his family. Staying with his family prompts him to not only reconsider the path that he has chosen in life, but to reevaluate his whole existence, and how he abandoned his talent.

"Five Easy Pieces" was one of the movies that affirmed the new direction that the movie industry was taking in the late '60s and early '70s. Ten years earlier, they might have given the movie an idiotically sugary ending, but the movie does not have such an ending. The ending not only shows how unhappy Bobby is, but also the sense of cynicism that had come to pervade the country. A 10/10.

Of course, the really famous scene happens in the restaurant. Although that was probably just thrown in for comic relief, it truly is a classic.
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7/10
HVCC Student Yuchen Bai Review
nbbaiyuchen22 April 2016
An effective, emotionally ravaging story concerning a drifter who runs away from his problems and picks up every odd job he can find. Nicholson has that magnetic quality that few actors possess so well, and his strong, utterly superb performance drives this film all the way through. Although it does bog down from time to time, director Bob Rafelson displays his mastery of the art of subtlety, using this for most of the film, before nailing his most important scenes with sudden outbursts from his characters that catch you off guard. Nicholson's character is definitely flawed, and he's a time-bomb ready to explode at any moment, but his mysterious character always keeps you glued to your seat, and the end of the film is just perfect beyond words.
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10/10
When Everything is Nothing
patrickfaulkner15 October 2001
After years doing Roger Corman quickies, Jack Nicholson emerged as a fully-formed mature actor in this great movie. I re-watched this film last week, and I still love it. Based partly on the life of eccentric Canadian concert pianist Glenn Gould, this is a wonderful character study of Bobby Dupea (Nicholson) who seems to have everything: musical talent, education, supportive family - but who, as the by-line says "is never satisfied". He tosses it in to work on oil rigs. His father's illness forces him to return to the family home on Puget Sound, bringing his girlfriend Rayette (beautifully played by Karen Black). What emerges is a clash of class and culture with Nicholson stuck between, enraged at both his background and Rayette. What is so wonderful is that information & character emerge thru small moments. (One of my favourites is Nicholson's piano-playing during the traffic jam). Nicholson shows the many sides of this talented drifter; a man who can be both charming and appallingly selfish. The cast is uniformly excellent, and the music of Tammy Wynette adds ironic commentary to the unfolding events.A classic film.
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9/10
Could This Be Nicholson's Best
Hitchcoc23 December 2016
Jack Nicholson, for all his quirkiness, is such a fine actor. His characters are so varied and so interesting. In this one, we have a lost soul of the 70's. He has walked away from all he is for the lowest common denominator. He's a womanizer, drinks too much, flies off the handle, and burns within. When he gets back to his family, it is utterly uncomfortable. They are gifted classical musicians, as is he, and he finds out, his father, whom he hates, has suffered strokes and is infirm and may die. There are some incredible scenes in that part of the movie. He hooks up with a beautiful young musician, betraying his brother, although it is as much her choice. She is actually in control of him at this point, and that is a hard pill to swallow. Of course, most remember the scene in the diner which has been played a thousand times on film retrospectives and tributes to our Jack. See this film if you have not.
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10/10
Jack's Finest Hour
blazesnakes911 February 2015
In 1969, Jack Nicholson was already starting out in the movie industry. He had just done several motion pictures, starring in supporting roles. Some of them were the original Little Shop of Horrors and Easy Rider. Audiences by 1969 already knew who he was and what he stands for. In Easy Rider, he played a drunken Southern lawyer with a good heart, who hitched a ride with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda on their motorcycle trip. But in 1970, Nicholson took on a role that would propel him not only toward the Academy Awards, but to movie audiences again with his leading role in Five Easy Pieces.

In Five Easy Pieces, Nicholson plays Robert "Bobby" Dupea, a man who's a oil rigger at day and a free-wheeler at night. He spends much of his time in the oil fields and goes in and out of motels and bowling alleys with friends at night. Earler in his life, he was a piano prodigy and was raised by his parents who admired piano-playing. But, times have change. Nowadays, Dupea works constantly, trying to make his life better by sticking to his job. His friends encourages him to live the good life. But, to Bobby's point of view, his words isn't getting him nowhere. His girlfriend, (Karen Black), does her best to keep him out of trouble, but her relationship with Bobby soon start to crumble as his lifestyle of free-wheeling grows too much for her to handle. One day, Dupea receives word from his mother that his father had suffered two strokes and as a result, can't talk nor walk anymore. Devastated, Bobby decides to take his girlfriend to Puget Sound, which is in British Columbia. Along the way, they pick up two lebsian hitchhikers, who joined them on their ride to Washington. Little while on, Bobby drops them off and continue on with his trip. Once Dupea gets to Puget Sound, he tries to make amends to his deserted family, but realizes that it might be too late.

Nicholson gives, what I think, a stand-out performance. Here's a character who is very different from the other characters that he would portrayed in his later films. Dupea is a angry, young man who doesn't know what he wants out of life. Another thing to point about Nicholoson's character is the dedication of the blue-collar worker. The movie illustrates a certain time frame in America, where anguish and rebellion were common. Nicholson was the right actor to play this person. The director or even the screenwriters would've thought that by casting an younger actor into this picture might make the audience identify with this person.

There's one classic scene that explains entirely the attitude of Nicholson's character. At a diner that is located on a interstate highway, Nicholoson tries to order a breakfast with a substitution. When he can't get what he wanted, he goes out of his way to get exactly what he wants. That scene, while it's classic in every way, tells us that this character is a man who will not obey the rules to society and will do whatever he wants to do. Even with Nicholoson playing out that scene with Karen Black and the two hitchhikers. I think it is clear that no other actor would've play out that scene if it wasn't for Nicholoson's anger. that's why I think he was one of the biggest emerging stars in Hollywood at that time. He is a actor that will do things differently and opposite and as soon as he changes the game, he can be satisfied with what he wants.

Besides Nicholson, Karen Black does a terrific job, playing Nicholoson's dim-witted waitress girlfriend. For her character to work, she acts like an attachment to Dupea. She is sort of the glue that sticks and keeps together the relationship. But as the film progresses on, we sense early on that their relationship might not last for long. Even after watching this movie for the first time, I got a sense that the running theme of loneliness that applies directly toward the Karen Black's character. In the beginning of the movie, she is alone in her house while Bobby is working on the oil fields. In the end, she finds herself alone again, except that it would probably means that this will be the last time.

For me, examining cinema has been a favorite of mine. Movies from the 70's were really about the 70's themselves. After seeing Five Easy Pieces, I knew that this movie would open up the gates of New Hollywood. because of that, new directors especially Bob Rafelson, who directed directed this movie, had the ability to direct what he wanted to see. I feel as if with the upcoming movies that came later in the 1970's, movie audiences were seeing flesh and blood characters being portrayed on the big screen. I might sound like the kind of guy that said that they make don't movies like this anymore, but in the case of Five Easy Pieces, that's an exception. ★★★★ 4 stars.
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