Synopsis
Breaking Away (1979) is an American comedy-drama directed by Peter Yates that you can watch online on iFILM. Dave has just finished high school in Bloomington, Indiana — a college town where kids like him, the sons of stone cutters, are called "cutters" and treated like furniture by the university crowd. His plan, such as it is: become a competitive cyclist and beat the Italian pros he idolizes.
Dennis Christopher plays Dave with a particular kind of earnest absurdity — he listens to Verdi, talks to the cat in Italian, and introduces himself to a college girl as an exchange student named Enrico. His three friends, including a young Dennis Quaid as the bristling Mike, are along for a summer that keeps refusing to resolve into anything clean.
Steve Tesich's original screenplay took home the Academy Award in 1980, and it earned it: the dialogue knows exactly when to be funny and when to step back. Yates built the whole film around a bike race, but what it's actually about is the particular discomfort of being nineteen and not yet sure what you're allowed to want. Stream Breaking Away (1979) online on iFILM.
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