It’s as classic a Hollywood image as you can get: Audrey Hepburn, donning a black satin gown and big black sunglasses as she nibbles a pastry and gazes lovingly into the window at Tiffany’s. While the iconic portrayal of one of cinema’s earliest manic pixie dreamgirls is often relegated to the realm of romantic comedy in our memories, beyond the glamour and occasional gags is a story with hidden depths. It is in many ways a profoundly sad movie about a troubled woman trying desperately to exert control over her life and her only slightly less tragic neighbor and love interest who tries to help her.
Adapted from a Truman Capote novella of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a critical and commercial success. The film won Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, as well nominations for Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Production Design.
Holly Golightly: A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma
After that first glimpse of Holly having breakfast outside the legendary New York jewelry store to the melancholy notes of “Moon River,” we are quickly shaken from this idyllic scene and thrust into the grit beneath the glamour. After a night on the town, Holly is returning home, where she is pounced on by her rich benefactor for the evening. As Sid Arbuck bangs on her door demanding to be let in, he angrily reminds her that she likes him and that picking up the tab and giving her $50 for the powder room entitles him to … you get the idea.
Thus begins the film’s rapid ebb and flow between Holly’s chic party life and the day-after realities. The hair, the makeup, the clothing, the accessories — it’s all so dazzlingly designed. It’s also a very superficial mask for a woman who owns little more than a couch made of half a bathtub, a seemingly never-ending supply of absurdly long cigarette holders, and a cat with no name.
Holly is an interesting figure shrouded in mystery and contradiction, but it’s Hepburn’s portrayal that elevates the character to legend. I don’t care that Capote was appalled at Hepburn’s casting and wanted Marilyn Monroe in the role; Hepburn made the movie. Of course, we can never know what that version of Holly might have looked like, but Hepburn’s ethereal beauty and grace bring a level of depth to Holly that extends beyond the surface glamour. Her physical embodiment of Holly is aesthetically striking, but her ability to convey the character’s inner turmoil and complexity in the subtlest of glances and nuanced expressions truly sets her performance — and the character — apart.
The Boy Next Door
Ahh, the love interest — Paul Varjak, played by the drool-worthy George Peppard. A struggling writer, Paul currently finds financial solace as a kept man for a wealthy older woman, the intriguing Emily Eustace Failenson (a character we don’t see nearly enough, phenomenally played by Patricia Neal). This dynamic adds a layer of complexity to Paul’s character that Holly finds immediately relatable as someone who pays rent one $50 trip to the powder room at a time.
From their initial encounters, marked by witty exchanges and Holly’s charming eccentricities, to the gradual unveiling of their true selves, the chemistry between Hepburn and Peppard is breathtaking. As the relationship deepens, Holly becomes a source of inspiration for Paul, prompting him to question his own aspirations and to break free from the confines of his role as a boy toy and rediscover his passion for writing.
Peppard skillfully captures this evolution, portraying a character who, beyond the allure of wealth, seeks meaning and purpose in his own life. To me, it’s Paul’s story, much more than Holly’s, that stands as a beacon of hope to the idea that redemption is possible. Paul takes the trip voluntarily, while in the end Holly must be dragged somewhat kicking and screaming out of the cage she has built for herself.
Holly’s Sad Origin Story
And why does that cage exist? She’s not just a gold-digger who doesn’t want to work. It’s obvious she’s got some issues from pretty early on in the movie, but it’s not until we meet Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) that we begin to see a little bit of the trauma that made the woman.
We meet Doc when he arrives in New York, seeking to reunite with his runaway child bride. Through Doc, we learn that Holly’s real name is Lula Mae Barnes and that she and her brother Fred were taken in by Doc as children after running away from an abusive home. Doc and Lula Mae were married when she was 14 years old, one can assume in an attempt on her part to secure continued care-taking for herself and her brother. Eventually, she ran away and reinvented herself as Holly, a fact which Doc seems so continually shocked by.
This little look into what I imagine is just the tip of the iceberg of Holly’s tragic past becomes a crucial element in understanding her choices, relationships, and the self-imposed cage she has built. The insight into her history along with Hepburn’s performance elevates Holly beyond the archetype of a gold-digger, portraying her as a woman shaped by trauma and seeking control in a world that dealt her an unjust hand.
No Classic Movie Is Complete Without a Little Controversy, Right?
While “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” has earned its place as a classic, it is not without its share of controversy, notably surrounding the character of Mr. Yunioshi. Portrayed by Mickey Rooney, Mr. Yunioshi is a caricatured depiction chocked full of offensive Japanese stereotypes. It’s bad, and it’s important to acknowledge it.
Beyond this, I think it’s important to note that Yunioshi is a backdrop character who subtly remains among the many “rats” in Holly’s sphere. Yes, he has a shitty neighbor who wakes him up at all hours. He’s justified in being mad, even justified in calling the cops on her late night parties. But the fact that he’s quickly placated when she mentions taking “those pictures we talked about” in the first few scenes of the movie is creepy and makes me not care about Yunioshi and his troubles for the rest of the movie.
Legacy
In the end, of course, Paul’s moving soliloquy sways Holly to abandon her plans to skip the country and seek a rich Brazilian husband and instead take a chance on actually falling in love. They kiss in the rain (with the poor soaking wet cat squished between them) and the movie ends. I’m sure the most romantic among us imagine a happily ever after. I’m a skeptic and I doubt it, but I find it a nice conclusion anyway. What I do see enduring is the mark left by Breakfast at Tiffany’s — from fashion to music, to cinematic storytelling. After all, I’m sure I can’t be the only ’90s kid who decided to watch this movie for the first time after the song by one-hit wonder Deep Blue Something hit the radio. Right?
What Breakfast at Tiffany’s Means to Us
Holly Golightly has become one of the most important female characters in cinema mainly due to her self-destructive nature … or that’s how I relate to her, at least. We are told so often that the only way to be happy is to continue to improve our lives: self-improvement is the way to go. But what if somebody felt the only way they were able to find self-improvement was in self-destruction? That’s how I see Holly Golightly’s story.
Once a sweet and innocent farm girl, she yearned for so much more as she had much larger dreams than what the simple countryside had to offer choosing to ditch her old life and start a new one in New York City. That’s where nobody knew her, that’s where she could start anew, that’s where she could be anybody she could choose to become. There are people all over the world who are waiting to be saved and wanting to save others but Holly didn’t want any of that. She was quite content in being the lost and confused little girl she had always been. Sometimes characters don’t learn from their mistakes and they don’t grow from their experiences. What they ultimately do is end up “killing” their old selves in favor of becoming who it is they have always seen themselves as inside their head and creating a world of their very own. Holly doesn’t know who she is, what she wants, and most importantly where she’s going. The fact that she ended up in a worse spot than where they started… as far as I’m concerned there is “enlightenment” in that. The filmmakers decided to give Holly a much different ending in the film than Truman Capote gave her in his novella due to the cliches that cinema requires but there is a lot to learn from her, her journey, and where she ultimately ends up in both the film and the book.
–Jinxy
The first time I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s was in 2019. It’s way too late to have finally watched this beautiful film! But I was hooked by that first scene of Holly Golightly emerging from a taxi and eating breakfast while gazing into Tiffany’s window. Audrey Hepburn is mesmerizing, the cinematography is gorgeous, and who doesn’t love a romantic kiss in the rain? It has flaws – hello, Mickey Rooney – but the movie still succeeds wonderfully if you cast them aside. What I think really spoke to me in this movie was Holly Golightly herself. She has no filter, no boundaries. She’s desperately searching for a better life, to become someone new and throw away her old self. She is the epitome of the “quirky heroine,” but she’s not an ideal. She’s a flawed, messy human being and is by far the most fascinating character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and probably all of cinema.
Like many others, when I think of this movie, the first image that comes to mind is Audrey Hepburn, with her classic updo in her black evening dress and heavy pearls hanging around her neck. Holly is Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and why I love this movie so much. My favorite quote from Breakfast at Tiffany’s is, of course, about Holly. I feel like this is Holly’s character in a nutshell. “She is a phony. But she isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. You know why? Because she honestly believes all this phony junk that she believes.”
–Romona Comet
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