Grade: A

On Wednesday, May 9th, the Alamo, in conjunction with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, presented an outdoor screening of Peter Yates’s 1979 classic, “Breaking Away,” on the rooftop of the Jones Center (700 Congress Ave.). In the pantheon of coming-of-age movies, “Breaking Away” is likely to hold a permanent place in the top ten. This is a movie you want to see. If you’ve seen it already, it’s a movie you want to see again.

“Breaking Away” is the story of four friends—Dave (Dennis Christopher), Mike (Dennis Quaid), Cyril (Daniel Stern) and Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)—who have recently graduated from high school and are caught in the painful nether-space of no longer being adolescents while not quite being full-fledged adults either. Their friendship remains the organizing principle of their lives, though they all feel the looming and implacable reality that will pull them apart and send them down the paths of their separate destinies. Of the four, Dave is the main character, and he proves to be one of the most unique and memorable protagonists in film history. He is obsessed with competitive cycling (bear in mind that the film is set in Bloomington, Indiana, in the late ’70’s, so this is a particularly unusual passion for a Midwestern teen to have). Dave idolizes the Italian cycling team, to the point of speaking with an Italian accent and listening to Rossini at high volume, much to the chagrin of his baffled father (played by “World’s Greatest Movie Dad” Paul Dooley, best known, perhaps, as Samantha’s dad in “Sixteen Candles”). The struggle between father and son is central to the film, with Dave relentlessly striving to express his own identity while his father loudly—albeit lovingly—voices his dismay at having such an unabashed weirdo for a son.

What makes Dave such an unforgettable character is the fact that he’s a Jedi-level dork. Nowadays, of course, it is fashionable for people to self-identify as “nerds,” “dorks” or “geeks”—a self-identification that would never occur if those who embrace these epithets didn’t intend them to function as synonyms for “cool.” What’s so refreshing about “Breaking Away” is how thoroughly unconcerned screenwriter Steve Tesich is with depicting “cool” young people. He understands that the young are the last people who should ever be cool, since cool is not the temperature at which youth sincerely asserts its passions and prerogatives. It’s worth remembering that what made James Dean so cool in “Rebel Without a Cause” is the fact that he was an emotional train wreck who was incapable of wearing his heart anywhere but on his sleeve. Which is exactly what a teenager should be.

It’s no accident that “Breaking Away” won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. There isn’t a wasted word or scene in the entire movie. The script is poignant, understated and economical. Every scene expands our understanding of the world in which the characters live by allowing us to share in their dreams, doubts and frustrations. It’s also no accident that “Breaking Away” ranks 8th on the American Film Institute’s list of “America’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies.” If you’re too hip and snarky to feel uplifted by a film like “Breaking Away,” you may want to have your soul tested for demonic possession. A timeless example of expert storytelling, “Breaking Away” is as powerful today as it was upon its release over thirty years ago.