- Perhaps I'm being unfair, but Five Easy Pieces strikes me as a film that would appeal to rich kids who want to run away from home. After all, isn't there some immature attraction contained in the idea of going off to work in oil fields and moving in with a simple waitress rather than taking piano lessons and rubbing elbows with the rest of high society? Assuming they even make it past the front door, I imagine most such kids would turn right around after the first night of sleeping outdoors, but not Robert "Bobby" Dupea (Jack Nicholson). Bobby has made an entire life out of running away, and he's not about to stop now.
- What precisely he's running from is never made particularly clear. Maybe it was his father (William Challee) from whom he had grown estranged long before the old man's recent health problems. Perhaps it was his effete brother (Ralph Waite), whose stiff neck seems more like an affectation than an ailment. Presumably it was not his sister "Tita" (Lois Smith) with whom he gets along fairly well, as far as it goes. Regardless, one still wonders precisely how Bobby found himself shacking up with Rayette "Ray" DiPesto (Karen Black) in a southern California oil town.
- Ray is what most people would describe as a "sweet girl." When she's happy, she's really happy. When she's sad, she's downright despondent. Unfortunately, Bobby's irresponsible and inconsiderate behavior usually doesn't take long to make Ray sad, and most of their interactions eventually devolve into petulant arguments. Even bowling nights with their working-class friends Elton (Billy Green Bush) and Stoney (Fannie Flagg) lead to fighting, and one gathers that Bobby's sexual dalliances with good-time girls (Sally Struthers and Marlena MacGuire) and piano proteges (Susan Anspach) alike don't help things. Basically, Bobby is a lousy person, and Ray isn't strong or smart enough to get away from him.
- Although the film's most famous scene involves a belabored order at a diner, my personal favorite involves a random hitchhiker (Helena Kallianiotes) on her way to Alaska because things are cleaner there. She goes on for quite some time about all the "filth" and the "crap" and and how she "doesn't even want to talk about it." Who hasn't run into her in the local organic supermarket? Unfortunately, the rest of the film is just a series of uninteresting events concerning lives I can't relate to that, were it not for Nicholson and Black's sterling performances, would have nothing to recommend them. If you can't get the easy pieces right, I wouldn't recommend moving on to more challenging work.
- And the hitchhiker's companion is...Toni Basil? Whoa.
- Bob Rafelson's career involves The Monkees, this, and porn. Double whoa.
