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Review

Breakfast at Tiffany's

3 out of 5 stars
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Time Out says

Asked what he disliked about the 1961 movie of his novella, Truman Capote replied: ‘Oh God, just everything. It made me want to throw up.’ He’d wanted Monroe for Holly Golightly, his goodtime girl who relied on the kindness of rich gentlemen-friends. Now ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is iconic in fashion circles and Holly Golightly seen as a proto-Carrie Bradshaw – a trailblazer for women who use their ovens for shoe storage. Re-released by the BFI, it’s as ditsy and delightful as ever – with charm enough to forgive it plenty.

Capote was right about one thing: Audrey Hepburn was miscast. She was the aristo-chic daughter of a Dutch baroness and so queenly it is too much of a stretch to believe in her as born dirt poor in Texas. That was Capote’s Golighty – married at 14, she left a brood of barefoot stepkids to run away to New York and reinvent herself. Still you can’t deny that Hepburn fizzes: she’s mischievous, tomboyish and so unutterably elegant – more than a match for Capote’s bon mots.

It was the movie’s sentimentality that got Capote’s goat. And it is hard to pardon the transformation of Golightly – who underneath a skittish exterior was an acid social observer and very self-knowing – into a frothy pea-brain. Intriguingly, in the early ’80s Capote was behind a talked-about remake with a teenage Jodie Foster. ‘Ideal casting,’ he opined. Maybe now it’s finally time for the unexpurgated ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’?

Release Details

  • Rated:PG
  • Release date:Friday 21 January 2011
  • Duration:115 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Blake Edwards
  • Screenwriter:George Axelrod
  • Cast:
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • George Peppard
    • Patricia Neal
    • Buddy Ebsen
    • Mickey Rooney
    • John McGiver
    • Martin Balsam
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