Dir. Blake Edwards, 1961, USA, 115 mins
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Mickey Rooney, Patricia Neal
Review by Julia Smith
Best remembered for its iconic image of it’s star in a black dress and pearls, Breakfast At Tiffany’s is known as much for its lead actress’s style than the story itself. Audrey Hepburn is forever immortalised as Holly Golightly, a woman so effortlessly beautiful and stylish that Breakfast At Tiffany’s is a favourite film amongst many women, even among those who haven’t seen the film.
Based on Truman Capote’s novella of the same name, Breakfast At Tiffany’s is the story of Holly Golightly, as told through the eyes of her neighbour, Fred (Peppard). Holly is a woman of no fixed abode who uses the men who become infatuated with her, throwing them aside when she has her use of them. Fred is the ‘lonely heart’ in the story, a young writer being ‘kept’ by an older lady. Holly’s over-familiarity with him leads him to fall desperately in love with her. But her need for her own freedom proves too great…
Bolstered by the fashion and the grace of Audrey Hepburn, the character of Holly is a style icon. Unfortunately, when you overlook Audrey as Holly, the film has little else to offer. The film’s narrative is confusing and it is commonly mis-marked as one of the great love stories. However, the relationship between Holly and Fred is unromantic, and their friendship, hollow. And although Fred is an interesting character as he watches and idolises Holly, he is unimportant and uninteresting, serving only to give the audience a distanced view of the mysterious Holly.
Added to the lack of a love story (which is only imposed in the ending scenes) there are other faults with the film. Mickey Rooney is abominably terrible as Mr. Yunioshi. Made-up to look like the Asian photographer, Rooney is loud and and painful to watch. Martin Balsam as O. J. Berman, tries his best, and as Holly’s agent he attempts ardently to get her work, but as what exactly? Are we supposed to believe that Holly is an actress? A model? A singer? Whatever it is Berman seems unlikely to leave her alone. It makes you wonder, if he thinks he knows her better than anyone else doesn’t he know that she wants freedom, so why doesn’t he leave her alone? The narrative has a number of seeming plot holes. Nothing really seems to be explained, there is no great love story leading up to Holly and Fred’s rain drenched kiss.
It is an old argument to patronise a film on the basis that it does not live up to the story of the original book, but too many plot devices were dropped from this one. Holly’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage is deleted entirely, so is the suggestion of Holly’s bisexuality (which was dropped as the studio thought it did not befit Hepburn). Added to this, Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the role of Holly, but after her drama coach told her it would damage her career to play a ‘call girl’, she turned it down. Hepburn replaced her, apparently to the dislike of Capote.
Although Hepburn thought she was miscast in the role of Holly, she is possibly the only thing that makes the film as watchable as it is. Hepburn is stunning. She is beautiful, she is graceful, more than anything she fits into Holly’s strange but dignified behaviour like a glove. Breakfast At Tiffany’s is famous for Audrey Hepburn’s iconic image, and it should be famous for this alone, because to be famous for anything else would be wrong and it would only serve to demean Hepburn’s otherwise incredible performance.
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