Breakfast at Tiffany’s Movie Review

The things Holly says might sound tawdry from most people, but Audrey Hepburn manages to make it seem as though she found it all a delicious adventure. She tries hard to protect herself from her feelings, categorizing all the men she considers possible partners for her as “rats and super rats,” planning to marry a man she does not love, refusing to give Cat a real name, trying to create a world for herself that is a perpetual Tiffany’s, where “nothing bad could happen to you.” She does give way entirely when Fred is killed in an outpouring of real emotion that scares away the man she is cultivating.

Paul sees this because it parallels his own experience. He once cared about writing, but as the movie opens, he’s given up any notion of personal or artistic integrity to allow himself to be kept by a wealthy woman. His relationship with her is his way of protecting himself from taking the risk of feeling deeply, as an artist or as a man. Paul and Holly understand each other, and that understanding makes them ashamed of the hypocrisy of their lives. Holly describes “the mean reds” as “suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.” Everyone has this feeling from time to time, but it resonates particularly with teenagers, who are experiencing more volatile and complex emotions than any they have known before, and who tend to conclude that since they are new to them, they have never been felt before. Breakfast at Tiffany’s provides a good opportunity to talk about those feelings and strategies for handling them.