Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson) eeks out a menial existence as an oil worker, boozing with sad sack Elliot (Billy Green Bush) and alternately browbeating and cheating on girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black). Returning home to visit his sick pianist father (William Challee), Bobby's forced to confront his past. A talented musician himself, Bobby shunned his family's artistic lifestyle, hoping to forge his own identity. But Bobby's failures catch up with him when Rayette meets his family, putting everyone ill at ease.
Five Easy Pieces depicts alienation a world apart from '70s counterculture. Bobby grew up in a privileged family and rejects their phony pretensions: he ridicules his crippled brother (Ralph Waite), beds that man's wife (Susan Anspach) and roughs up the family nurse (John Ryan). Similarly, he ridicules the pretensions of Rayette, who dreams of being a country music star, and only demonstrates his musical talent on a truck-mounted piano in a traffic jam. Success, real and imagined, strikes him as phony - but Bobby's posturing strikes us as petty.
Indeed, Bobby's journey mainly leads to dead-end jobs and personal failure; certainly he's achieved little casting himself out. His one friend gets arrested for a petty crime; Rayette's so downcast by his abuse that she contemplates suicide. When Bobby walks off the job, his boss scarcely notices. Did Bobby forge his own identity or merely squander his talent? The wreckage left in his wake suggest a disturbing twist on the road to self-discovery.
Rafelson films this in sparse art movie style. He mixes terse dialogues with moody silences and odd, low-key flourishes: Elliot's delirious fight with Federal agents, Bobby's tennis match. Rafelson and co-write interject the show with odd human moments: Bobby's mistress contemplating her dimple; Rayette singing along to Tammy Wynette; the famous chicken salad monologue, where Bobby tells off a pompous waitress. For all its sparseness, Pieces is remarkably compelling.
Jack Nicholson catapulted from eccentric Easy Rider bit player to A list star. It's easy to caricature Nicholson's madcap, leering mannerisms, but when properly channeled they're inspired. Nicholson gets ample chance to stretch his talents: bickering with Rayette, raging at the "pompous celibate" Samia (Irene Dailey) or especially his agonized monologue to his father. It's the finest acting Jack ever did, surpassing his more famous turns in Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Karen Black (The Great Gatsby) makes Rayette believably pathetic. She's a complete sad sack, yet with Bobby in her life who could blame her? Susan Anspach does excellent work as the one character with Bobby's true measure. Billy Green Bush (The Culpepper Cattle Company) plays Bobby's hapless friend Elliot. Sally Struthers (The Getaway) appears as one of Bobby's flings.
Five Easy Pieces imparts a sobering lesson. Art typically values the outsider who sheds and goes his own way. Yet what does Bobby gain from abandoning his family? The bleak ending suggests he's learned nothing, destined to perpetuate his slow, soiling tragedy forever.
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