What a interesting year for Clint Eastwood in 1973. Edged between his first directed western, High Plains Drifter, and his second Dirty Harry film, he found time to direct Jo Helms's screenplay Breezy, which posits that middle aged men can have affection and love for unpretentious hippie girls in their early 20s in 1973. It's such a soft movie you might wonder whether or not it was a pre-Lifetime. Eastwood gives the picture some soft touches (including some song selections that are about as gooey as the worst romance songs you've ever heard), but it's the casting that makes the material work.
William Holden plays Frank, a real estate salesman, who picks up hitchhiking hippie chick Breezy (aka Ethel Alice Breezerman or something), and even though she drops him off after she tries to help a stranded dog, she comes back to his place (she was just hanging around near his place since she had gotten out of a bad hitchhiking bit), and barely ever leaves afterward. Why she clings to Frank is never entirely clear, or why Frank is alright with it, but there's enough down-to-earth moments around the more cheesy scenes like walking along the beach. It's understandable why each is attracted to the other- with Breezy more-so it just seems part of her 'Breezy' nature- though with Frank it's a little trickier. He's very easily impressionable, and isn't sure the relationship will work.
So there lies basically the only conflict here in what is basically a low-key may-December romance story with tasteful bits of sex and nudity (the latter from a very beautiful Kay Lenz), and a script that kind of just ends very expectedly, with only a minor twist involving drama in a car accident (it's not spoiling anything saying that). While Eastwood's direction is simple and uncomplicated, and the script allows just enough room to make this kind of believable stuff, it's the acting that saves the show. Holden is great as the aging Frank, able to suggest his insecurities while not overdoing it in the slightest (I'm reminded a little of a less cynical take on what would occur in Network a few years later), and Lenz makes Breezy appropriately lovable and annoying in equal measure (yeah, I found her a little annoying, which might've been the point).
It's very enjoyable for what it's worth, but there's not too much depth to it. It almost feels like a kind of diversion of a movie experience for both Eastwood and Holden, and it wears its period of early 70s sexual liberation with a slight conservative air. 7.5/10
William Holden plays Frank, a real estate salesman, who picks up hitchhiking hippie chick Breezy (aka Ethel Alice Breezerman or something), and even though she drops him off after she tries to help a stranded dog, she comes back to his place (she was just hanging around near his place since she had gotten out of a bad hitchhiking bit), and barely ever leaves afterward. Why she clings to Frank is never entirely clear, or why Frank is alright with it, but there's enough down-to-earth moments around the more cheesy scenes like walking along the beach. It's understandable why each is attracted to the other- with Breezy more-so it just seems part of her 'Breezy' nature- though with Frank it's a little trickier. He's very easily impressionable, and isn't sure the relationship will work.
So there lies basically the only conflict here in what is basically a low-key may-December romance story with tasteful bits of sex and nudity (the latter from a very beautiful Kay Lenz), and a script that kind of just ends very expectedly, with only a minor twist involving drama in a car accident (it's not spoiling anything saying that). While Eastwood's direction is simple and uncomplicated, and the script allows just enough room to make this kind of believable stuff, it's the acting that saves the show. Holden is great as the aging Frank, able to suggest his insecurities while not overdoing it in the slightest (I'm reminded a little of a less cynical take on what would occur in Network a few years later), and Lenz makes Breezy appropriately lovable and annoying in equal measure (yeah, I found her a little annoying, which might've been the point).
It's very enjoyable for what it's worth, but there's not too much depth to it. It almost feels like a kind of diversion of a movie experience for both Eastwood and Holden, and it wears its period of early 70s sexual liberation with a slight conservative air. 7.5/10