Five Easy Pieces

A Jack Nicholson film from 1970, which is on re-release at the moment.

Jack Nicholson, aged 33, predicts his current film persona as a charismatic grumpy old bastard, playing a younger grumpy, frustrated bastard. As the film opens, he's working a blue collar job on the oil rigs in California. He's got a girlfriend, a best mate with whom he drinks and goes bowling, and from the very outset, it seems that something's not exactly right. He clearly thinks he's better than the life he's leading, looks down on his friends, and seems set on sabotaging his relationships.

He goes to visit his sister, who it appears is a session pianist in Los Angeles, from whom he learns that his father is seriously ill with a stroke. So, he goes to visit his family up in Washington, reluctantly. When we get there, we find that he too is a talented pianist from a wealthy family with a musical heritage. And he's not happy there either, finding his family as pretentious as he finds his peers down in California superficial. Pretty soon it becomes obvious that he doesn't feel he fits in anywhere.

Overall, it's a character study, and this is an exercise in watching Nicholson rage against the banality of existence. Oddly, I became aware of this clip the other day, which serves as a great trailer for the film, and which is what prompted me to go see it when I noticed that it was on the cinema: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8

It's a great film, if a bit unstructured. Doesn't really explain what's going on, which can be a problem if you're sitting in front of a pair of idiots in the cinema constantly asking each other what's going on. And rustling their bloody sweet wrappers. But really, it's all about Nicholson's performance, and he's got a real knack of keeping the audience on edge; there's a simmering rage and violence just under the surface, and the joy of this film is that you never know which way he's going to go next. Definitely worth checking if it's on near you. (http://www.parkcircus.com/now-showing/)