On The Hollywood Reporter’s ranking of the all-time best sports movies, 1979’s Breaking Away came in at number six. It should be higher. It’s a funny, poignant, coming-of-age movie – and it never gets old. During these cynical times, Breaking Away is a jolt of humor and optimism, no small thing.
Breaking Away takes place in Bloomington, Indiana, and features a promising amateur cyclist and his three friends. They’re recent high school graduates, and they don’t know what they’re going to do tomorrow, much less with their lives.
They do know that they don’t care for the elitist Indiana University students. I won’t be a plot spoiler, but everything comes to a head at the Little 500, Indiana’s annual, charitable bike race, which still exists. For the film’s characters, and many audiences, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.
As I recently wrote, IU’s magnificent football season will probably not be made into a movie. Documentary? Yes. Movie? No. Here are some reasons, in no specific order, why Breaking Away made a wonderful movie.
Courtesy RogerEbert.com
Breaking Away focuses on a talented amateur cyclist with loads of potential, Dave Stohler (actor Dennis Christopher) who’s pedaling to, well, probably nowhere. In amateur biking, there’s little to no money, not to mention NIL. Dave’s love of bike racing, specifically Italian bike racing, is pure.
Breaking Away screenwriter Steve Tesich based Stohler on a real person, IU classmate and friend Dave Blasé, and Tesich was a member, albeit as an alternate, on Blasé’s Little 500 cycling team. In the film, Stohler’s cycling team is memorably referred to as “The Cutters,” which is slang for the Bloomington locals who work in the limestone industry.
Ultimately, Breaking Away rings true because much of it, at least its spirit, is. Tesich. He immigrated to the U.S. from Yugoslavia (now Serbia) when he was 14, and nails the feelings of inadequacy of Stohler and friends. Deservedly, Tesich won an Academy Award for best original screenplay.
Breaking Away’s ensemble of then-unknowns is stellar. Dave and his three pals are the Village People of midwestern male inadequacy. For one reason or another, they all want to break away from everything they’ve ever known. Dave escapes his post-high school malaise by imagining that he’s an Italian cyclist.
Dennis Quaid’s ex high school quarterback, “Mike,” is haunted by his gridiron glory. Daniel Stern’s “Cyril” must remove himself from his negative, overbearing father. And as much as he tries, Jack Earl Haley’s “Moocher” can’t get out of his diminutive size.
Finally, Dave’s parents, played by Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie, keep the bar high. Barrie was nominated for an Academy Award and Dooley should’ve been. He delivers ample levity and, in perhaps the film’s most poignant soliloquy, he and son Dave stroll the IU campus, which he helped build.
IU football is now a multi-million dollar juggernaut, but it’s college football in name only. Breaking Away is a movie about directionless nobodies competing in an amateur bike race. Yet, credit to Breaking Away’s filmmakers and cast, the Little 500, means everything.
Jon Hart is the author of Unfortunately, I was available.
Mr. Hart – Well written and I appreciate you for taking me back to a NYC Summer in Manhattan, where I worked as a gopher for my Dad’s exhibit design co. in Manhattan. I was 13, soon to be 14. Dad insisted we go and see this new movie release after work. I tried my best to get out of it and get back home to Queens, to no avail. It was a packed theater. The movie was ‘Breaking Away and it was thoroughly enjoyable for me – where it definitely made an impression. I went home and dusted of my Dad’s old ‘Orange Schwinn Varsity and rode her for the whole Summer. A decade plus later, I’m living in the front range of the Rockies in Colorado, where I find myself riding mountain and road bicycles for fun. I competed in competitive amateur cycling, training, racing. To this day, I’m glad Dad dragged me to the cinema that day and with that, my go-to flick is, of course—Breaking Away…It is so classic. Thanks so much for your synopsis of my all-time favorite.
Cheers! – Randy in CO
Ps – Agreed. Mr. Dooley should have been nominated, at least! Also, I had no idea there was a ‘Cutters football organization in IN state.