Parents' Guide to Five Easy Pieces

This 1970 movie vividly showcased the gritty talent of Jack Nicholson, and it was an outstanding example of a new kind of independent, non-studio filmmaking. The movie was a reflection of the influence of disaffected youth on a changing American reality and it's difficult to convey the refreshing departure from the usual that Five Easy Pieces represented. The film's look, freewheelingly photographed by Laszlo Kovacs, brings the landscape into the cast of characters and it has been imitated so often that today's viewers may find the movie dated. Bobby's confusion and anger echoed the generalized sentiments of a nation of young people bent on doing things differently, and Bobby was at least asking some questions, even if for the wrong reasons.

The movie's missteps are obvious today as it awkwardly sets up devotion to art -- an ordinary feature of Bobby's parents' home -- as a cartoonish sham that only honest and direct people like Bobby are capable of exposing. The film's greatest flaw is its ham-handed agenda -- if the world Bobby came from is a silly pretentious cartoon then Bobby's anger is legitimized. Young viewers today will more likely see Bobby as an over-privileged elitist who is just plain angry, not at pretension, but at everything. He likes to show up for his dangerous job on the oil rigs drunk and is outraged when the boss sends him home. He gets angry at his blue-collar friend when the man has the audacity to compare his trailer park life to Bobby's. The movie's problem is its own pretension. It seems to champion those who challenge authority but its most iconic line comes when Bobby scathingly tells a surly server at a truck stop to "hold" the chicken salad "between your knees." Yet we don't feel much like applauding when the big bad authority Bobby brings tumbling down is just a weary old waitress who's been standing on her feet too long to be cordial. Nicholson was 33 when he played Bobby. Many teens will probably wonder what an old guy like him is going on about.