Breaking Away (1979) [PG] *****

A film review by Roger Ebert, January 1, 1979.

Breaking Away is a wonderfully sunny, funny, goofy, intelligent movie that makes you feel about as good as any movie in a long time. It is, in fact, a treasure -- which is why it's in half as many theaters as trash like Bloodline. Exhibitors are scared to death of offbeat, original movies; they'll play it safe with sleaze every time. But audiences are discovering Breaking Away (the studio has been sneak-previewing it for months), and they love it.

No wonder. In a summer of big-budget movies that are insults to the intelligence, here's a little film about coming of age in Bloomington, Ind. It's about four local kids, just out of high school, who mess around for one final summer before facing the inexorable choices of jobs or college or the Army. One of the kids, Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher), has it in his head that he wants to be a champion Italian bicycle racer, and he drives his father crazy with opera records and pidgin Italian.

His friends have more reasonable ambitions: Mike (Dennis Quaid) was a high school football star quarterback who pretends he doesn't want to play college football, but he does; Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley) is a short kid who pretends he doesn't want to be taller, but he does; and Cyril (Daniel Stern) is one of those kids like we all knew, who learned how to talk by crossing Eric Sevareid with Woody Allen.

There's the usual town-and-gown tension in Bloomington, between the jocks and the townies (who are known, in Bloomington, as cutters -- so called after the workers in the area's limestone quarries). There's also a poignant kind of tension between local guys and college girls: Will a sorority girl be seen with a cutter? Dave finds out by falling hopelessly in love with a college girl named Katherine (Robyn Douglass), and somehow, insanely, convincing her he's actually an Italian exchange student, angering her fraternity boyfriend Rod (Hart Bochner) in the process.

The whole business of Dave's Italomania provides the movie's funniest running joke: Dave's father (Paul Dooley) rants and raves that he didn't raise his boy to be an Eye-talian, and that he's sick and tired of all the EE-nee food in the house... linguini, fettuccini... as well as Jake, the dog, which Dave has renamed Fellini. The performances by Dooley and Barbara Barrie as Dave's parents are so loving and funny at the same time that we remember, almost with a shock, that every movie doesn't have to have parents and kids who don't get along.

The movie was directed as a work of love by Peter Yates, whose big commercial hits have included Bullitt and The Deep. It was written by Steve Tesich, who was born in Yugoslavia, was moved to Bloomington at the age of 13, won the Little 500 bicycle race there in 1962, and uses it for the film's climax. Yates has gone for the human elements in Breaking Away, but he hasn't forgotten how to direct action, and there's a bravura sequence in which Dave, on a racing bicycle, drafts behind a semitrailer truck in an attempt to get up to sixty miles an hour.

In this scene, and in scenes involving swimming in an abandoned quarry, Yates does a tricky and intriguing thing: He suggests the constant possibility of sudden tragedy. We wait for a terrible accident to happen, and none does, but the hints of one make the characters seem curiously vulnerable, and their lives more precious.

The whole movie, indeed, is a delicate balancing act of its various tones: This movie could have been impossible to direct, but Yates has us on his side almost immediately. Some scenes edge into fantasy, others are straightforward character development, some, like Mike's (the former high school quarterback) monologue about his probable future, are heartbreakingly true. But the movie always returns to light comedy, to romance; to a wonderfully evocative instant nostalgia.

Breaking Away is a movie to embrace. It's about people who are complicated but decent, who are optimists but see things realistically, who are fundamentally comic characters but have three full dimensions. It's about a Middle America we rarely see in the movies, yes, but it's not corny and it doesn't condescend. Movies like this are hardly ever made at all; when they're made this well, they're precious cinematic miracles. [Ebert's rating: **** out of 4 stars]

Labels: college, comedy, drama, family, rom-com-faves, romance, sport, teenager
Internet Movie Database 7.7/10
Metacritic 91/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=82, viewers=78)

Blu-ray (TwilightTimeMovies, sold out limited edition)
Blu-ray (link to Amazon Japan release in February, 2019)
Amazon.co.jp release of February, 2019
DVDTalk
Wikipedia - plot, backstory, shooting locations, etc.
HomeTheaterForum review

Blogger's comments: Breaking Away has aged extremely well. Even after forty years it's still believable and we can still relate to the characters and their experiences. CAUTION: The following vidcaps from the film are really a SPOILER.

After their morning swim in an abandoned limestone quarry is interrupted by the arrival of several Indiana University (IU) students, the four friends, (L to R) Cyril, Dave, Moocher and Mike decide to drive through the IU campus. They've just graduated from high school, have nothing to do for the summer and no plans to go to college. The rack on Mike's car is for Dave's racing bicycle.

Dave catches his first glimpse of Katherine, playing frisbee on the lawn.

Dave recover a notebook that Katherine dropped from her Vespa scooter, chases after her on his bicycle and gives it to her. He tells her he is Enrico Gimondi, an Italian exchange student, and calls her Caterina.

Enrico (Dave) serenades Katherine outside her sorority, backed up by Cyril on the guitar.

Suzy (P.J. Soles) calls Katherine's boyfriend Rod (Hart Bochner) to tell him that some guy is serenading Katherine at their sorority. Rod and his fraternity buddies arrive and beat up Cyril, thinking he is the guy. [TRIVIA: Dennis Quaid's IMDb bio notes that he and P.J. Soles were married in November, 1978, probably just after filming was completed. They divorced in 1983.]


After Katherine dumps Rod and begins dating Enrico (Dave), Rod begins dating a pretty, blonde freshman (Jennifer K. Mickel)

Enrico (Dave) and Katherine have a date in the Indiana University student union. Rod and his new girlfriend are also there, and when Mike, Cyril and Moocher arrive and start a fight with Rod as payback for beating up Cyril, it turns into a brawl.

Dave participates in a 100-mile bike race featuring the Italian Cinzano racing team. When one of the Italians jams a bicycle pump between his front wheel spokes and takes Dave out of the race, he's shocked to discover that his Italian heroes cheat.

Dave decides he's no longer Enrico Gimondi, the Italian exchange student. He confesses to Katherine that he's just Dave Stoller, a Bloomington resident and high school graduate. She's understandably heart-broken and slaps him.

Dave and Katherine's final goodbye scene. She's leaving Indiana University to take a job in Chicago and Dave is training for the Little 500 bike race.

Dave and his team of Mike, Cyril and Moocher win the Little 500 bike race.

The film includes a great soundtrack featuring classical Italian music:

Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A Major (Italian Symphony), Opus 90

Rossini's The Barber of Seville (Overture)

M'appari tutt amor from "Martha" by Friedrich von Flotow

What is really amazing to me is that in 2018, forty years after this film was made, all of the principal actors are still alive. Director Peter Yates and screenwriter Steve Tesich have passed away, but the actors, including Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley are still with us.

If you read Robyn's biography on IMDb.com you'll discover she was born in 1953 and she's currently (2018) running The Seasons Bed & Breakfast in Placerville, CA.