I was 15 when I first watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’d heard a lot of talking about this movie and Audrey Hepburn’s marvelous interpretation. However, once I watched it, I felt like either I had been sold a hype, either my expectations were too high, or I hadn’t understood the movie. Too much disorder, many men and a deep emptiness in the main character’s turbulent and crazy life. She appeared to me to be a stupid, superficial and lost girl, whose life was a complete mess and without any sense.
A few days ago, when I was looking for something to watch after having finished the last season of Peaky Blinders (great TV show btw), there I saw it. And surprisingly, after not having a good souvenir of it, something pushed me to click on it and to give it another try 7 years later. And to be honest, I found it quite updated to our times, where many people feel lonely and empty, and try to fulfill their lives with material or mundane things.
It seemed that the movie I watched that morning was completely different from the one I watched when I was 15. It would be fairer to say that the movie was exactly the same, and it was me who had changed.
Throughout the movie, I saw a really complex character, Holly, whose behavior obviously hid fears, nervousness and wounds. It wasn’t a silly and spoiled girl; it was a woman like any other, with little hopes and expectations but to have enough money to live and to dress in a fancy fashion, and who was tremendously scared to love.
I found revealing the last scene of the movie. Holly is trying to convince Paul to take her to the airport to fly to Brazil, even if her « dear » almost-maybe-fiancé broke up with her after she had been involved in a drug scandal. All her hopes were on that plane and on that rich and respected man who had finally decided to leave her as « she didn’t belong to the same world as he did ».
However, Holly still wants to go Brazil and start a new life there. She thinks leaving New York will give her the fresh air she needs. What she didn't realize during all that time is that, without noticing (or without the courage to notice it), she had already met the man of her life. Paul was her only and best friend and he truly understood her and loved her the way she was. He had given up on his maecenas to regain his freedom to start a new life with Holly. But Holly is too scared to offer him her love. She could only imagine a marriage with any rich man who could economically take care of her, even if she didn’t really love that man.
Paul, a patient man in love, after hearing Holly’s insistent request to take her to the airport says:
Paul: I love you.
Holly: So what.
Paul: So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!
Holly : [tearfully] No. People don't belong to people.
Paul: Of course they do!
Holly: I'll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage.
Paul : I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!
Holly: I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other.
Paul: You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.
These words made me think. After all, Holly is just a characterization of all of us who are too scared to accept and embrace love, to face the duality of this emotion that brings equally joy and sadness. We tend to think that to love someone will restrain our freedom, that it will "put us in a cage". But love is not imprisonment, but freedom. Above all, love is trust and respect; it's giving someone the power to destroy you but trusting them not to. Holly was too scared to trust. And Paul was right; we are our only cage and no one can take us out of it but ourselves. The so-called “free spirits” sometimes turn out not to be that free; their fears of feeling emotionally vulnerable prevent them from doing what they are naturally prone to do, which is to love and to meet happiness.
I guess this movie wasn’t as superficial as I once thought and it had a good lesson to teach…
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