Breakfast at Tiffany's
Dear fellow readers,
Audrey Hepburn is my inspiration and favourite celebrity icon. I love the classic movie, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. The biggest movie of all time.
Warning: Spoilers alert!
The movie begins with the famous scene; Holly Golightly emerges from a taxi and walks up to Tiffany's. She stands in front of the closed store, carrying a brown paper bag and peers into the window. She pulls out a coffee and pastry. Takes a huge bite and gazes admiringly at a display of beautiful jewellery.
After looking into the store's window displays, she strolls to her apartment and has to fend off her date from the night before. Once inside, Holly cannot find her keys, so she buzzes her landlord, Mr. Yunioshi, to let her in. Later, she is awakened by new neighbor Paul Varjak, who rings her doorbell to get into the building. The pair chat as she dresses to leave for her weekly visit to mobster Sally Tomato, who is currently incarcerated at Sing Sing. Tomato's lawyer pays her $100 a week to deliver "the weather report".
As she is leaving, Holly is introduced to Paul's "decorator", wealthy older woman Emily Eustace Failenson, whom Paul nicknames "2E". That night, when Holly goes out onto the fire escape to elude an over-eager date, she peeks into Paul's apartment and sees 2E leaving money and kissing him goodbye.
Visiting Paul afterward, she learns he is a writer who has not had anything published since a book of vignettes five years before. Holly, in turn, explains she is trying to save money to support her brother Fred after he completes his Army service. The pair fall asleep but are awakened when Holly has a nightmare about her brother. When Paul questions her about this, Holly chides him for prying.
She later buys Paul a typewriter ribbon to apologize and invites him to a wild party at her apartment. There, Paul meets her Hollywood agent, who describes Holly's transformation from a country girl into a Manhattan socialite, along with wealthy Brazilian politician José da Silva Pereira, and Rusty Trawler, the "ninth richest man in America under 50".
Sometime later, 2E enters Paul's apartment, worried she is being followed. Paul tells her he will investigate and eventually confronts Holly's husband, Doc Golightly, who explains that Holly's real name is Lula Mae Barnes and that they were married when she was approaching 14. Now he wants to take her back to rural Texas. After Paul reunites Holly and Doc, she informs Paul that the marriage was annulled. At the Greyhound bus station, she tells Doc she will not return with him, and he leaves broken-hearted.
After drinking at a club, Paul and Holly return to her apartment, where she drunkenly tells him that she plans to marry Trawler for his money. A few days later, Paul learns that one of his short stories will be published. On the way to tell Holly, he sees a newspaper headline stating that Trawler has married someone else. Holly and Paul agree to spend the day together, taking turns doing things each has never done before.
At Tiffany's, Paul has the ring from Doc Golightly's box of Cracker Jack engraved as a present for Holly. After spending the night together, he awakens to find her gone. When 2E arrives, Paul ends their relationship. She calmly accepts, having earlier concluded that he was in love with someone else.
Holly now schemes to marry José for his money, but after receiving a telegram notifying her of her brother's death in a jeep accident, she trashes her apartment. Months later, she invites Paul to dinner, as she is leaving the next morning for Brazil to continue her relationship with José. However, the pair are arrested in connection with Sally Tomato's drug ring, and Holly spends the night in jail.
The next morning, Hollywood friend O.J. Berman pays Holly's bail. Paul is waiting for her in a cab, bringing her pet, "Cat", and a letter from José explaining that he must end their relationship due to her arrest. Holly insists that she will go to Brazil anyway; she asks the cab to pull over and pushes Cat out into the pouring rain. Just after they get underway again, Paul storms out of the cab, tossing the engraved ring into her lap and telling her to examine her life. She goes through a decision-making moment, puts on the ring and runs after Paul, who has gone looking for Cat. Finally, Holly finds Cat sheltering in an alley and, with it tucked into her coat, she and Paul embrace. This was her way of finally accepting and loving herself.
This movie is a must-see! Love, love, love... until next read... ciao!
