Box Watcher

It’s easy to forget that Jack Nicholson used to be a very good actor.  Don’t get me wrong I love Jack.  But for the most part he’s spent the last twenty years just playing himself.  But if you look back to stuff he used to do in the 70’s; The Last Detail, One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, Chinatown, etc..  you can truly get a feel for how talented the man can be.  Five Easy Pieces in another in a long list of great Jack characters and performances.  It’s a good thing, because with a lesser actor the movie would have suffered terribly.  

Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) is something of an every man.  He works all day in the oil fields and comes home to Rayette (Karen Black).  The couple spend their evenings bowling and drinking.  At least most nights they do, some nights he goes partying with his friend Elton (Billy “Green” Bush).  Even though Robert is self absorbed and doesn’t treat Rayette very well he still has a sort of roguish charm to him.  

It’s that charm that tips us off that he’s hiding something.  After Robert and Elton go on an all night bender, which includes a tryst with some floozies, the pair show up late to work but get sent home for being “unfit” AKA, they’re still drunk.  During the trip home on the freeway there is a traffic jam.  Robert gets out and climbs on the back of open bed moving truck to see what the hold up is.  It’s then that he notices a piano on the truck.  He begins to play a classical piece.  He does so well, better than a blue collar kind of guy should,  that when the truck starts moving and gets off the freeway, Robert continues playing leaving Elton stuck in the traffic unable to follow. We soon learn that Robert comes from a family of classically trained musicians.  He’s soon called home to visit with his sick father who will most likely be dying soon.  

The movie is very funny and a great character study until he gets home.  In the early scenes we get a sense of how comfortable his life is.  He’s not really happy so much as content.  He treats Rayette bad but not because he doesn’t like her, he just doesn’t love her.  Every time she asks him if he loves her, he comes back with a line like “What do you think”.  Never saying what she wants to hear yet never allowing her to believe otherwise.  There is a real sense that he doesn’t know what he wants out of life so he keeps moving.  

There is a very funny, but strange segment during the road trip to the family home.  The couple picks up two hitchhikers, Palm and Terry.  Terry is mostly quiet but Palm can talk.  She is disenchanted with everything.  Complaining about all the dirt and commercialism in the world.  She never tires of griping, even when she says she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.  It’s a fun and humorous segment but except for setting up a nice scene at a truck stop is pretty pointless.  

So the first half is fun but when Robert gets home things get somber and bogged down.  He fall for his brothers girlfriend.  For the first time in the movie we think he finally knows what he wants and goes after it.  But it doesn’t work out the way he wanted and the film ends on a note of ambiguity.  

Five Easy Pieces is strange film.  Equal parts comedy, drama, and character study.  It is all three yet not really any of them.  The tone is all over the place and it drags in parts.  Yet it’s entertaining thanks mostly to Nicholson’s Academy Award nominated performance.  I liked it but just didn’t “feel” it.  

*** out of *****