“Breakfast of Champions” based on a Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name has returned to the big screen 25 years later with a 4K restoration.
Just about all “champions” in the film are a far cry from being champions of a normalcy. Characters here are champions of an eccentric otherworld.
Dwayne Hoover (Bruce Willis) is at first blush a successful car dealer in Midland City in a suburban midwestern United States that Vonnegut paid “homage” to in so many of his novels. Dwyane is lost looking for some meaning in his life that is punctuated by suicide attempts and a dizzying array of cheesy commercials for his dealership Dwayne Hoover’s Motor Village. Fair to say Dwayne is in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
Dwyane’s wife Celia (Barbara Hershey) is lost in space by too many Mother’s Little Helpers. Bunny, their son, lives in a bomb shelter dug out in the front yard. He is a miserably pathetic lounge singer that puts Diane Keaton’s jazz vocals in “Annie Hall” in the stratosphere.
Harry Le Sabre (Nick Nolte) is a paranoid sales manger for Dwayne Hoover’s Motor Village. His Hawaiian Day television on air commercial and some of his outfits are priceless. Yes he is a transvestite.
Dwayne’s mistress and secretary Francine (Glenne Headley) spacy but sweet voice offers comfort to Dwayne.
And who could forget a recurring Vonnegut character, the prolific but obscure science fiction writer Kilgore Trout (Albert Finney). And a very strange Eliot Rosewater (Ken Hudson Campbell) head of the Rosewater Foundation who may be Trout’s sole appreciator.
The film is all about a strange cast of characters perhaps as spacey as the cinematography, cheeseball television commercials both actual and created for Dwayne’s car dealership (selected and directed by Vonnegut as the Commercials Director).
The film directed by Alan Rudolph may wander a bit plot wise but the fascinating congregate of characters may be more important than the plot.
Limited Canadian theatrical release 5November2024.
You can watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUQzm3PxPGE
RKS 2024 Film Rating 88/100.
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