Hey there everyone. All you Vonnegut fans gather round. Here's a looksee at the film adaptation of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. Vonnegut's novels are not what one traditionly thinks of as being cinematic, but... I really like SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 and MOTHER NIGHT. So it is with a bit of trepidation that I look forward to seeing BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, but for now... let 'privateidaho' fill you in...
Long time reader, first time reviewer here. I just went and saw the u.s. premiere of Alan Rudolph's Breakfast of Champions. It premiered as part of the Seattle International Film Festival (the other film festival going on right now) and it was a packed house down at the Cinerama. They actually had to ask people to leave. Anyways, the show was held up a good twenty minutes because Alan Rudolph, Nick Nolte, and Bruce Willis hadn't arrived yet. When they finally did, Rudolph took the microphone, introduced us to the film and the lights went down...
I really don't know how to compare this film to anything I've ever seen before. I've been struggling with that for the past 24 hours, trying to process all I'd seen. I'll try and break it down for you, but it's best to keep in mind what Mr. Rudolph told all of us before the screening: "The best audience for this film is an audience who's never seen a film before...in order to enjoy this movie, I need all of you to de-program for a bit."
The story basically stays true to Vonnegut's novel. We have Dwayne Hoover (Bruce Willis), a car salesman who fears he's going crazy. The film goes out of its way to capture the inner workings of Hoover's mind, and Bruce Willis actually does a great job of portraying this crazy Vonnegut creation. We also have Dwayne's wife, a total nutcase played by Barbara Hershey, and his son Bunny (played perfectly by Luke Haas!). But by far the best role goes to Nick Nolte, hamming it up as the paranoid cross-dressing car salesman, Harry LaSabre. The movie is actually really well-cast, and almost always well-acted, but the problem it runs into is not having a straight character for us to identify with, or any downtime to let us catch our breath. And for any worried Vonnegut fans out there, Albert Finney IS Kilgore Trout, he's fantastic. And Vonnegut does all the drawings, lifted from his book, that are used throughout the film.
Breakfast of Champions is definitely an experience. It is chaotic and messy in much the same way that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Slaughterhouse Five" and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" have been. Basically, if you're not familar with Vonnegut's work at all, or if you're not on a whole lot of drugs, you won't like this film all that much. If you like the book, you'll probably make it through, glad you've seen it, but wanting to re-read the book. It's a sometimes great, sometimes unsettling film, often too surreal for its own good. But when it works, it really works, and the audience I saw it with gave it many laughs and many applause. Alan Rudolph and Bruce Willis have created something here, I'm just still not sure whether it's brilliant or idiotic. And Bruce Willis himself sent us home with the words: "We're not offering any explanations, or any answers here." And I don't think they could even if they wanted to. thanks harry,
privateidaho
