Breaking Away (1979) * * * *

Directed by:  Peter Yates

Starring:  Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, Robyn Douglass, Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley, Hart Bochner

Breaking Away truly understands its characters and what they feel.    At 19, Dave (Christopher), Mike (Quaid), Moocher (Haley), and Cyril (Stern) are content with hanging around Bloomington, Indiana yearning to belong.    They are derisively called "Cutters" by the frat boys at Indiana University, which is right in their backyard.    Cutters refers to the working class masons who constructed the buildings that neither they nor their children have the means to enter.   "We're good enough to build them, but never good enough to go inside," one character astutely says.    Dave, Mike, Cyril, and Moocher are the children of cutters, but to the college boys that is guilt by association.     

The movie was a surprise hit in 1979.    The conflict between the frat guys and the Cutters is settled in a bicycle race called the "Little 500", but Breaking Away isn't satisfied with being a sports movie.     Its people are alive, unique, and memorable.     Dave is the most colorful of the Cutters.   He worships the Italian cycling team so much so that he adopts a phony Italian accent and drives his father crazy.    ( "No more foods with eenie in them.   I want American food like French fries,")    The relationship between Dave and his cutter turned used car salesman father (Dooley) is a touching and complex one.     The payoff scene in which these two finally learn to understand each other causes tears to well up. 

Also complex is Dave's burgeoning relationship with a college girl.   He poses as an Italian exchange student, because he doesn't think she would accept him as he is.     His friends also feel the same way, but show it in different ways.     Mike is a resentful former high school quarterback who fears his best days are behind him.     He also would rather curse the darkness than light a candle.    Moocher is a short kid who isn't afraid to throw punches when he is insulted.      He brings a new meaning to "punching the clock" after his boss calls him shorty.    Cyril took the college entrance exam and failed, but operates under the façade of going with the flow.    

Breaking Away won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for its writer Steve Tesich, who grew up in Indiana and fully understands this world from the inside out.     The movie operates with a vibrancy in nearly every frame.     The frat guys are dickheads, of course, but they also behave as if they are as resentful of the Cutters as the Cutters are of them.     A few bad breaks and they could be Cutters themselves.     But we look forward to the Cutters finally winning some respect in the big race.    

The big race itself is a grueling, sweaty, tiring one.     I loved the way the final lap was shot.    It is shot from far away and without close ups.     There is no slow motion.    We see it as if it were being shown live on TV with all of the built-in suspense you would expect.     We are truly rooting for these kids to emerge as hometown heroes over the hateful outsiders.     Breaking Away could not have worked if Tesich, Yates, and the cast did not give their all to make it special.