Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

So
here’s where I ended up:

I still don’t like these
characters. But I rather like the movie, in the broadest sense. So
I’m divided.

Let’s get the obvious flaws out of the
way first. Mickey Rooney playing a racial stereotype Asian character
is awful. It was common practice in that time, but it is
horrendous to the modern viewer’s eyes. Edwards points to this casting
decision as the only thing he’d change about the movie. Later
criticism of his work here devastated Rooney. They hired him to do
his Mickey Rooney schtick, and he does it well. But it’s an
enormous pimple on the face of this lovely movie.

The
other primary flaws are that like its characters, the movie is too
often superficial and cute. Like its theme song, it is cloyingly
saccharine at times. It’s a movie that tries very hard to
dance around the fact that its main characters are, at best, paid
escorts, and at worst, are selling their bodies for cash.

That
could be the basis of an amazing story of self-discovery. Instead, we
get the previous generation’s version of “Pretty Woman”. Holly
GoLightly (Hepburn) has an improbable name and an equally improbable
lifestyle. She flits from one wealthy middle-aged man to another with
a tantalizing tease that if they take her to the right places and
give her enough money, there may be more. She then dances away at the
last possible moment, with the implication that she never takes
the final (sexual) step. Meanwhile, Paul (Peppard) makes no pretense
about being the sexual plaything of an older, married woman (Neal).
She pays his rent, his bills, and leaves a little something on the
table after a night together. He has so little strength of character
that it takes Holly all of sixty seconds to sweep him into her
orbit.

As the movie progresses, we discover how thin the
Holly veneer is. She isn’t who everyone thinks she is, and she
isn’t who she thinks she is. Holly wants to believe she is the
master of her fate. But like a piece of fluff carried by the breeze,
she goes where others push her. Here the best interpretation is that
she’s a manipulator of modest success.

There is growth
for Holly and Paul, but it comes at the end and seems rushed to me.
We need a happy, Hollywood ending, so let’s make it all work in
the end. Peppard’s character growth story arc has the longer span
of the two, but it’s Holly’s that deserves the attention it never
gets. Buddy Ebsen’s character rises from Holly’s past with a
bizarre twist that feels out of place. It’s a city boy’s idea of
what the rest of the country looks like. When the script makes its
attempts at giving us some depth, it falls flat. It’s not possible
to go deep while playing in the shallows.

So where does that leave
us? With a story that skips along with bright energy and a fairy tale
view of the New York City of the early 1960s. Edwards has made this
kind of glossy, crafted movie repeatedly. Other than the casting
issue, there’s not a visual movie step set wrong here. The
supporting cast is filled with wonderful actors, like Martin Balsam,
John McGiver, Allen Reed, and Mel Blanc! If you stay at the surface,
the movie performs flawlessly. It’s when it tries for something
deeper that the script bothers me. That may sound like shallow
praise, but the movie charmed me along the way. There’s a subtlety
to how the title’s explanation that appealed to me. In fact, it’s a
love letter to the iconic jewelry store. The flagship store opened on
a Sunday for only the second time in a century for the interior
scenes. John McGiver’s portrayal of the reserved but caring senior
clerk makes me wonder if the customer service is that letter-perfect
today.

The movie is charming, funny, light-hearted, and
beautifully made. I doubt there will ever be a third viewing.

Rating
– *** Worth A Look