Just give the guy a piece of toast.
The most memorable scene in "Five Easy Pieces" has Jack Nicholson arguing with a waitress who refuses to serve him toast, because it's not offered on the menu. The Nicholson character engages in a fierce debate with the waitress that may have inspired Jerry Seinfeld's style of observational "nothing" humor. Nicholson reasons that the waitress can just serve him a chicken salad sandwich and hold the chicken.
"You want me to hold the chicken, huh?" the waitress says. Nicholson glares back with fierce determination.
"I want you to hold it between your knees."
The waitress responds that she doesn't appreciate his sass, and Nicholson smacks the plates and glasses off the table and leaves. It's a scene of joy and exuberance amid frustration, and speaks to the very core of what makes films so enjoyable. Nearly everyone has considered doing something so bold, but almost none of us will.
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In the elegant portrait of discontent, Nicholson plays Robert, an oil rig worker with a live-in waitress girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black).
He fills the emptiness of his nights carousing, hitting the bars, going to bowling alleys. One night while busting down pins in a foursome with Rayette, his pal Elton (Billy Green Bush) and Elton's wife, he becomes enraged with Rayette over her lack of bowling skills, refusing to join the others in applause when she finally gets a spare.
He's bent on leaving Rayette — an urge complicated when Elton tells Robert she's pregnant — not necessarily out of cruelty or callousness, but because he knows she'd be better off without him in the long run.
"I move around a lot, not because I'm looking for anything really," he says, "but 'cause I'm getting away from things that get bad if I stay."
While Robert bides his time, he strives for random sexual encounters, lying about his identity to two floozies he meets in a bowling alley, and hooking up with one of them (Sally Struthers) for a loud and sloppy — almost rage-filled — lovemaking session that moans with exhausted existentialism.
After he hears his father is nearing death, Robert confronts his past, which had only been hinted at previously. With Rayette in tow, he heads to visit his wealthy, island-residing family. We discover that Robert was a child piano prodigy who failed to meet his father's expectations and turned his back on his lifestyle and fled.
It turns out Robert's blue collar getup is a lie — his rough guestimate of how he thinks a regular person should live and behave. He travels everywhere but fits in nowhere. He has copious sex but can't find love. He rages at society's confinements but continually slips into cages.
The title works in many ways. On the surface, it's the title of a music book Robert owned as a child. It can also be slang for the women Robert beds in the film. And, of course, "Five Easy Pieces" is a description of Robert's psyche, tugged in all different directions and comfortable with none of them.
Robert allows his temper to explode in fits of rage-filled creativity that match the animalistic torridness of the sex scene with the Struthers character.
Stuck in traffic on the way to work with Elton, Robert complains that everyone is behaving like ants. He gets out of the car, hops on the back of a truck and starts playing the piano in a manic frenzy.
As everyone else looks on in astonishment, Robert's devilish grin and fevered music provide a serenade of despair. You can trap him, deride him, even deny him his toast. But you cannot make Robert into an ant.
Five Easy Pieces (1970). Rated R. Starring Jack Nicholson. Directed by Bob Rafelson. 96 minutes. Available on DVD. For links to other reviews in the series, go to www.azstarnet.com/sn/review
