The Breakfast Club 1985
I might have watched this movie at the theaters originally and have watched it a number of times since then. It is definitely one of the most iconic movies of the 80’s, one of the defining movies of the brat pack and part of a handful of movies by John Hughes that so perfectly described life as a teenager. It is also one of his more problematic movies, more serious than the earlier Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which was made immediately after this one. It is a smaller movie, set primarily in a high school library and essentially a stage play of character dialogue. Hughes was so great at making characters, but John Bender (played by Judd Nelson) is so over-the-top obnoxious here as he sexually harrasses Molly Ringwald’s Claire. After yet another big assault on Claire, she comes to him when he is in his solitary confinement to start a romantic relationship? He never really worked for me and that relationship never really worked despite Bender letting his guard down and being nicer to the people he has bullied for the entire movie. It’s a nice ending that doesn’t really fit what we’ve just watched. Bender’s character didn’t really work for me then and still doesn’t, making his nemesis, the assistant principal, seem reasonable by comparison when he should have been a bad guy. Instead it was antagonist vs. antagonist.
A lot of the movie works quite well. Anthony Michael Hall’s geek character is far more nuanced and realistic than in Sixteen Candles as he struggles with expectations and peer and parental pressure. Emilio Estevez does some good work as a jock who feels trapped and is one of the few to show any remorse for why he is in detention, but even he has some scenes that don’t entirely work for that character. Ally Sheedy is a pretty good character and her transformation at Claire’s hands is one of the bright spots of the movie. Claire herself is good, a great performance by Molly Ringwald, looking fantastic, but primarily she is just a punching bag for Bender. Lastly, Paul Gleeson as assistant principal Vernon is another good character, drawn too sharply, but to a good effect, as a guy who maybe wanted to make a difference once and now is just part of the problem, still getting some great lines in and painting these characters maybe a little too accurately when the movie seems to want to say they are something more than their stereotypes. John Kapelos as the janitor, Carl, a Shakespearean fool, is a little bit too sharp for his own good, but I like that he and the brainy Brian like each other, giving each of their characters a little more depth.
Somehow in college I ended up owning the soundtrack to this movie, almost certainly through the Columbia House Record Club, but other than the still excellent “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” the music in this movie is just awful. It is hard to believe that Hughes made Bueller with its great soundtrack on the heels of this one, but maybe he learned a lesson here not to trust something as vital as music to unknowns.
Anyway, I bought the Blu-ray on a great sale and watched the movie again, not realizing just how indelibly printed the whole thing already was, and still not really enjoying the movie for pretty much exactly the same reasons as always. There is so much overacting and the forced bonding as they all smoke pot together, which makes them all lifelong friends, even as they acknowledge that probably nothing changes. So while the movie is still iconic in a lot of ways, that doesn’t mean it is a good movie. And while a lot is made of the brat pack (there never really was a cohesive group of stars who hung out together like the Rat Pack), most of these stars were at their critical peak in this movie and despite having long careers, wouldn’t see this kind of success again.
Written: 27 May 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital