I’m really not sure what people see in this movie, because, like Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), it’s afraid of commitment and honesty.
The plot, which can most kindly be described as ‘no plot, just vibes,’ follows two prostitutes who fall in love. Instead of exploring Paul Varjak’s (George Peppard) struggles as a starving artist who turns to prostitution as a means to survive between selling stories, or how Golightly prostitutes herself to live as a party girl in New York, they focus on all the stupid situations she gets herself into, and he drags her out of.
Just to reinforce how meandering and unimportant the overall storyline is, here is a description of the movie on IMDb: “A young New York socialite becomes interested in a young man who has moved into her apartment building, but her past threatens to get in the way.”
The past being Golightly’s ex-husband, Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen), who is introduced 44 minutes into the 116-minute-long film. At first, 2E Failenson (Patricia Neal) and Varjak believe he is a private investigator hired by Failenson’s husband to catch her being unfaithful, so keep in mind that part of his screentime is spent on this idea. 57 minutes into the movie, Holly Golightly cries as she and Varjak watch her ex-husband take a bus back home to Texas. Doc Golightly never appears on-screen again and is only mentioned in the telegram that gives her the news that her brother, Fred Barnes, has passed away.
It’s important to note that the movie glosses over the fact that she was a teenage runaway who married at 14 to the man who took her and her brother in, or that she is closer in age to her step kids than she is to her own husband. They actually work really hard to try to portray Doc Golightly as a sympathetic character.
According to Houston Public Media, which is affiliated with the University of Houston, PBS and NPR, most forms of child marriage would be banned in Texas as of Sept.1, 2017. Based on this information, it seems that Golightly’s child marriage would have been seen as significantly less disturbing than it is today, but it is just one of many aspects of this film that has aged like a glass of milk left under the Texas sun.
Apple TV describes the movie as: “… Holly is a deliciously eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. George Peppard plays her next-door neighbor, a writer who is ‘“sponsored’” by a wealthy Patricia Neal…”
The Brazilian millionaire, José da Silva Pereira (José Luis de Vilallonga), appears at the 32-minute mark and is introduced to the story at one of Holly Golightly’s parties, which are filled with plenty of characters that are, at most, of mild importance. If anything, he spends more time with Varjak before climbing out the window and down the fire escape at the 39-minute mark. He is all but forgotten about until the 87-minute mark when Golightly reveals that she intends to marry him. Silva Pereira disappears from view at the 93-minute mark and is never seen again, though we see Golightly preparing for their life together. After she is bailed out of jail, she finds out from Varjak that her husband to be has dumped her.
I won’t deny the importance of this plot line, but it is comparable to the 15 ½ or so minutes spent on the Sally Tomato (Alan Reed) one. That is to say, this movie is a tangle of storylines that never reach their full potential and serve little purpose other than bringing Varjak and Golightly together.
Prime Video has a more accurate description of the movie: “Holly is an eccentric New York City playgirl who becomes interested in her next-door neighbor, a writer who is ‘“sponsored’” by a wealthy patron.”
As you can see, there really isn’t much of an overarching story that they can describe; things just happen to the characters until they fall in love. I don’t want to hear any, ‘But isn’t that just what life is?’ because relationships take effort to grow and maintain, and rarely are they passive. I’m also not fully convinced that Golightly actually loves him.
Golightly is the original manic pixie dream girl, and without her mystery, she would be nothing. The idea and puzzle of her is more interesting than who she really is.
In the novel “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1958), Golightly is described as being very young. The narrator’s first time seeing her was when she was living in New York, he writes, “she was shy two months of her nineteenth birthday.” In the movie, Varjak takes the narrator’s place. Though I’ve only read a whopping 10 pages of the book, I imagine that her youth is what explains her behavior in a way that Hepburn’s portrayal simply can’t. While Hepburn is beautiful and youthful, the only bar she would get carded at would be one that cards anyone under the age of 40. Had Golightly been a teenager in the movie, it would have better explained her immature behavior, her disregard for consequences, her trusting a man accused of being a mafia boss (who is in jail for tax fraud) to do her taxes and to give her financial advice, her tendency to run away, her half tub half sofa, and why she’s only interested in partying and having fun.
But instead of being honest about who Golightly is, an abused teen who has bounced around from predator to predator in an attempt to take care of herself and her brother, a teen who wants to be free and to have fun, and who is still figuring out who she is, they tone down the taboo aspects of her that make her complicated and a victim. They tone this down so much that on Prime Video, the movie is even tagged as ‘fun.’ What’s fun about an alcoholic teen working as a prostitute to support herself after she runs away from her child-predator husband?
A 1961 New York Times article by Murray Schumach acknowledges the differences between the film and the novel. “Dialogue that is too risqué has been deleted or changed, said the director. She no longer discusses her experiences with men in detail… Mr. Edwards [film director] reported, Holly still retains the character of a dreamer who is frightened, always running away and possessed of ‘”a rather profound set of values.’” She is now fey, rather than immoral.”
But Golightly isn’t the only character who is treated poorly by the film.
Varjak would have been more interesting if they had given him a backstory. Where is he from? No idea. How old is he? Haven’t got the faintest clue. How did he meet 2E Failenson (Patricia Neal), his ‘decorator’ and the woman who sponsors his lavish lifestyle? What got him into writing? Why did he choose to become Failenson’s sugar baby over getting a job?
At the end of the day, this movie was hard to get through and easily the worst movie from the bunch. If it weren’t so wildly overhyped, I probably wouldn’t hate it as much as I did, but I still can’t figure out what there is to like about it. It’s zany, I’ll give it that, but it lacks substance. It is weird just for the sake of being weird.
