The opening scene in Five Easy Pieces (1970) reveals Jack Nicholson’s character, Robert “Bobby” Eroica Dupea, to be a roughneck on an oil rig. Later on, director Bob Rafelson will reveal the irony of those once-delicate hands being abused with such heavy-duty manual labor, but he holds off long enough—while dropping a couple of brief clues along the way—that when the reveal finally comes it makes an impact. It's a puzzle for the viewer to ponder, but the puzzle of Bobby himself is beyond discernment, especially to Bobby.
Accompanying the opening credits that roll as Bobby finishes up his work day is Tammy Wynette singing “Stand By Your Man.” Bobby stops for a six pack of Lucky beer, and then returns home to his girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black), where the soundtrack song is playing on her turntable. As needle drops go, this one's heavy-handed.
As the lyrics go, “He does things you don't understand,” and Bobby sure does things Rayette doesn't understand, like cheating on her, and treating her like a doormat. But she's a real “stand by your man” woman who clings to Bobby, both emotionally and physically, in a way that makes him squirm; he's not a cuddler. Bobby tells her, “DiPesto, get that sign off your tit”—she's in her waitress uniform with a name tag—”and why don't you and me go out and have us a real good time.” “Out on the town” means bowling and more Luckys with his buddy Elton and his wife.
Bobby's an angry, alienated man—the subject of a film that's part character study, part road movie. But angry about what? That's the mystery, but Bobby doesn't show his feelings, so there are few clues. Perhaps he doesn't trust them enough to show them, something a trip to his childhood home in Washington State will shed some light on, but only because he was forced to go there. Flight is his primary instinct.
Bobby gets into a fight with Elton at work, calling him a dumb cracker who lives in a trailer. This is after Elton told him Rayette’s pregnant and suggesting he marry her, which Bobby can't handle. Bobby walks off the job, and in the next scene, he's wearing a suit and the soundtrack has shifted to classical. Act two has begun, with a new set of thematic elements. But Bobby’s still got a can of Lucky in his hand as he drives to L.A. to see his sister, who's recording a piano piece in a music studio. She informs him that his estranged father's had two strokes, and may not live much longer. Reluctantly, Bobby agrees to visit the family on a remote Puget Sound island, and he agrees to let a weepy Rayette join him.
This begins the road-trip portion of a film that's all about Bobby, whose entire life resembles a road trip to nowhere. Black’s Rayette, a role she nails, is all sweet, countrified naivete, while Nicholson’s the prickly loner who comes from an elevated world beyond her understanding. Neither will be comfortable when they arrive on the island; nor could either be comfortable together in the long term.
Bobby and Rayette alone in a car for an extended time wouldn't work for long—it would just be Rayette talking—so they pick up two lesbian hitchhikers along the way. The riders are in the car too long, but long enough to be in the famous diner scene in which Bobby, pissed off that the bored waitress won't accommodate his “substitutions,” clears the booth’s table with a forearm sweep. It's a spectacular scene suggesting that Bobby sees a waitress just following the rules as he views Elton—trailer trash he can treat as if they're beneath him. For an explosive scene so connected to a film, it could’ve been edited out with no significant loss, unlike a handful of other lesser-known scenes. When the film was released, the diner scene impressed many viewers as an act of heroic rebellion against authority by Bobby/Nicholson, but when the authority figure’s a burnt-out waitress, that doesn't fly.
When Bobby arrives at the posh home on the island, the curtain’s pulled back. In fact, he's been slumming with the proletariat back on the mainland, and now he's back with his successful musical family. Bobby was once a gifted young pianist, until something with his father cracked and he went on his nomadic journey. There will be no resolution on the island.
This film, a prime example of the emerging American New Wave cinema, announced the arrival of an era when happy endings and lack of ambiguity were no longer required. Five Easy Pieces, in which Nicholson dominates, also marked the arrival of the actor’s official movie-star status after Easy Rider announced him as a top candidate. It's probably his best role, before the time when he went on his Jack Nicholson “trick bag” for the camera as he moved towards self-parody.
Bobby beds his brother’s fiancé (Susan Anspach) on the island, while Rayette’s flummoxed by his over-cultured family. He's embarrassed by her, as when she asks for ketchup with her steak, but when a pretentious poet humiliates her, Bobby rips into her, calling her a “pompous celibate.” Perhaps Nicholson's singular trait as an actor is his ability to instantly explode in rage. But the only time Bobby shows his real feelings in the film is when he has the final, confessional, talk with his father, who's unable to speak, or show any emotion. He tells him about how he goes from place to place, leaving when things go bad, which he's getting ready to do again with Rayette, as the film’s final scene illustrates in a nihilistic fashion.
Nobody watching Five Easy Pieces expects Bobby and Rayette to return to Bakersfield and make a life together with a baby on the way, but the ending still shocks. After they've left the island, he gazes at his reflection in the mirror in the restroom of a gas station, trying to find a clue as to what's inside him. What he sees is that things have gone bad again, so it's time to do what he always does when that happens.
The success of Five Easy Pieces proved that there was an audience for a story with desolation and alienation at its core. The story’s bolstered by the stunning cinematography of Lázló Kovács, a ground-breaking script by Carole Eastman, and an exceptional supporting cast. Bobby's a charismatic mess who leaves people who care for him behind when they become inconvenient. It's the kind of character who could be easy to dislike if not in the hands of a talent like Nicholson.