Breakfast At Tiffany's

One of my personal favorites, with a messy plot and Audrey Hepburn as the lovable yet heart-wrenching protagonist, this movie will introduce you to a love story unlike any other thanks to the beneficially contradicting personalities involved.

Holly Golightly is hard to analyze, mainly because you have to look deep in order to find the roots and deep meanings behind her actions. It's not until you learn that she was a mother at 14 due to her sheltered upbringing and naive perspective on life that you can start to understand her now spontaneous and detached lifestyle as a jobless 19 year old living in New York.

Plot Summary: Holly Golightly lives in a brownstone on Manhattan's swank East Side. Totally madcap, she has a partially furnished apartment, owns a cat with no name, gets rid of the "mean reds" by visiting Tiffany's jewelry store, and is forever misplacing her door key, much to the dismay of her upstairs neighbor Mr. Yunioshi, a Japanese photographer. Holly makes her living in two ways: she receives $50 from her gentlemen escorts whenever she needs powder room money, and she is paid $100 for each weekly trip she makes to Sing Sing Prison, where she visits Sally Tomato, an ex-mobster. One day Paul Varjak, a young writer who is supported by an older woman nicknamed "2E", comes into Holly's life. Following one of Holly's wild cocktail parties hosted by her Hollywood agent, O.J. Berman, Paul unexpectedly meets Doc Golightly, a gentle Texan whom Holly married when she was only 15 years old. Holly explains to Paul that the marriage was annulled long ago, and he helps her send the heartbroken Doc away. After a day on the town together, Paul realizes that he is in love with Holly and proposes to her; but she is determined to marry José , a South American millionaire. However, when it is publicly revealed that Holly has been innocently carrying narcotics ring information from Sally Tomato to his New York associates, the stuffy José abandons her. Furious at everything and everyone, Holly kicks Cat out of her taxicab into the rain and decides to leave town for Brazil, but Paul lectures her and then goes out to find Cat. Holly realizes how much she is giving up and races through the wet New York streets to a happy reunion with Paul and Cat.

“It may be normal darling; but I'd rather be natural" - Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's Breakfast At Tiffany's.

For some background, the book and movie are quite different and both have helped me get to know Holly well, but they had me asking different questions. The film leaves you mostly satisfied, yet each time I watch it I learn more about Holly and gravitate towards sympathizing with her. After the book I couldn't help but think of why Paul was so incredibly enamorate of her, as Capote focuses so little on his character. This leaves room for you to envision Paul loving her because of the way you do, making his character as relatable as you want it to be. As well, director Blake Edwards preferred Marilyn Monroe to star in the film but when she denied to work of Something's Gotta Give (her unfinished film before her passing) Edwards decided to form the movie and character to better suit Hepburn, who, in my opinion, plays her famous role fantastically well. She turns Holly into an ambiguous and disastrous character while managing to earn your sympathies.

What I first noticed about Holly was her fearlessness. Which seems so wrong at first because everyone around her, including Paul, sees her as naive and frightened girl, which doesn't go right along with that adjective. But Holly is so content with her new persona and world she's created, that she isn't afraid of anything. She's blocked out her past and has goals in her mind, she's determined and happy with channeling all of her energy into her homemade routine. That being said, if she feels this is being threatened, like when Jose ended their relationship (and she knew her golden ticket was to marry rich and live a lavish life with him), she flips and all her current, past and future problems flood into her mind. This is the reason behind her reaction in the taxi cab, not heartbreak but fear that she failed at sustaining herself. Something we can all be afraid of at times. Unless her independence and individuality are threatened, she couldn't care less. She doesn't care about judgement she faces because she knows it wont do anything real and she keeps her mind on her future, and where she will be in 5 years, living a fruitful life. She doesn't mind the growing facade she manages because her altered reality stays the same, and most of all she doesn't mind feeling isolated yet surrounded by people because she is content with herself and considers herself a free woman, something she has never felt before. Although at first glance you wouldn't think it, this movie is all too relatable when you analyze her feelings and connect them to her actions.