The music of Tammy Wynette and Chopin which score Five Easy Pieces are a prefect representation of the inner struggle of Jack Nicholson's complex and brilliantly portrayed angry young man man who left behind a world of privilege and culture for a world of hard work and mobile homes, only to find he is miserable in each.
Modern indies often have similar plots, a man who's escaped his past comes back to face it while meeting quirky characters along the way – but too often they get wrong what this film gets so right. The people in this film seem real, complex, and complete.
Every actor is sublime, including the adorably ditzy Karen Black and of course Nicholson, when he was the greatest looking thing on earth. This is a great movie.
But what do you think?