|
|
Rating: - Fun, Flirty and Resplendent
This great romantic classic features the glowing Audrey Hepburn as a callous, innocent society girl who wants no permanent home. This rule applies to her cat as well, whom she refuses to give a name to because she doesn't feel she'll keep it .
George Peppard is the single writer and "escort" of an older woman.
After some scandal and a fiance who later breaks off the engagement,Holly finds the love she's looking for in Peppard and together they find the cat and .who knows ?
Audrey is stunning, dreaming and convincing in her role.
Rating: - Read the book instead
This is pretty different from Capote's terrific novella. They "Hollywood-ized" so much of it, that it could only be described as "loosely" based on...... if you have modern movie sensibilities, you may find this way too predictable and sappy, especially the ending. I heard that Capote didn't think much of the movie, and I'm inclined to agree.
Rating: - Cute movie - Unrated, but Not for young children
This is one of my favorite fun movies! I like the special DVD edition with the extras and interviews. I agree that the casting of Mickey Rooney as a japanese man might have been better played by a japanese actor. Breakfast at Tiffany's was Audrey Hepburn's best. I love Funny Face too because both are fun.
Rating: - Wild ride on the wild side of privilege
BaT is one of those films that gives viewers an insight into the lives and mindset of an entire period. Audrey Hepburn plays impulsive-yet-fragile Holly Golightly, a young woman living the high life in New York City around 1960. There is much about the film that is bizarre and almost otherworldly. Holly is a woman of exquisite taste and fantastic connections, with a perhaps non-existent body of work and (beyond comic scamming of her rich dates) no evident means of support. She doesn't seem to be a movie star, and (regardless of how Truman Capote may have written her originally) shows little evidence of being a call girl. She throws lavish parties, loves to hang around Tiffany's and lives alone in a largish apartment in notoriously expensive NYC. She may or may not be naïve about the "weather reports" she is asked to pass along, for a modest stipend, by a mobster she visits weekly in Sing-Sing prison. She quickly starts up a relation-by-fire-escape with Paul Varjak, a young writer who moved into the apartment upstairs. Varjak is a "kept" man, who is supported by a middle-aged society woman. Predictably, the two young people fall in love, though Holly is notoriously skittish about commitments of any kind.
The film is smart, based on a story by Capote, and exudes a tamed version of debauched high society hijinks that must have seemed shocking when the film was released. Alcohol flows copiously at Holly's parties, with people dancing with more or less wild abandon until the cops arrive to quiet things down. The idea of mixing Holly up with narcotics dealers is pretty edgy also, as is the clear indication of the sexual relationship between Varjak and his married benefactrice. Indeed, the sexual tension is kept rather high throughout the film. In one memorable scene, Holly escapes a drunken date by climbing a window into Varjak's apartment. Holly is clad only in a nightgown, and Varjak, in bed after an assignation with his lover, is seemingly naked under the covers. Their conversation, held on Varjak's bed, is at once titillating and awkward.
But all is not as it seems. In spite of her seeming sophistication, Holly has commitments "back home" in Arkansas. Her impulse is always to flee, which threatens her budding romance with Varjak. The rest of the film deals with whether she will run away once again or settle down with a man who loves her.
BaT fascinates by giving us a glimpse into Holly -- an intriguing and beguiling creature -- and the life she leads. Who is she? And how does she manage to both attract and keep so many men at bay? Hepburn gives us the 1950s-vintage portrait of the alluring female, ever in search of a sugar daddy. Yet this is also what modern eyes find repellent. Holly may be presented as the charming sum of her behaviors, but psychologically, she is a mess. She drinks too much, pretends not to understand she is being manipulated, cavorts in the scandalous limelight. She is almost a cartoon -- hardly someone who could be understood as real. Yet Hepburn brings a charm, cuteness and vulnerability to make the film very engaging. By the end of the film, you will have fallen for her like everyone else.
The rest of the cast stands out -- George Peppard as Varjak, Martin Balsam as Holly's agent, and Buddy Ebsen as her back-home interest. The only sour note is played by Mickey Rooney, who plays a stereotypical buck-toothed, myopic Japanese neighbor forever banging into things and threatening to summon the police to ends Holly's noisy parties.
BaT is still worth the watch after 40 years, if only to observe the world that many found fascinating in an age that considered itself more optimistic and innocent than our own.
Rating: - what?
i have wanted to see this movie for years because i had always heard such wonderful things about it. what a bust. holly golightly is just too flakey to be able to follow in this movie. totally unrealistic plot. and really it was going no where. don't bother with this movie. it was a real disappointment.
|
|