Cinema: Not So III Wind

BREEZY

Directed by CLINT EASTWOOD

Screenplay by JO HEIMS

Breezy is not just another May-September romance; it is more of a March-January sort of thing. He (William Hoiden) is a divorced real estate salesman inhabiting the only gloomy and unenviable modern house in Southern California. She (Kay Lenz) is a vagrant hippie who lands on his doorstep one morning and, after some suitably mature reluctance on his part, in his bed a little later. He is weary and wise, she is innocent and wise, and they spend altogether too much time exchanging mutually edifying homilies while Director Eastwood searches for camera placements that tend too much toward the lyrical or the portentous. In time they split up—more maturity—then come back together again; after all, it is 1973, and everybody (including matinee audiences) is entitled to a little happiness.

Breezy should be an ill wind but is not—not all the time, anyway. It is affecting in its weird little way. Maybe because it is pleasant to find anything animated by the romantic spirit at the movies these days. Maybe because Writer Heims has a saving, cynical sense of humor. Maybe because Eastwood has an easy way with actors that is far easier, more relaxed than his fussy manner with the camera. But probably most of all because Bill Holden, 55, is still an astringent, no-nonsense sort of actor, and his old-pro integrity is matched by the artless, awkward sincerity of Newcomer Lenz.