The Breakfast Club- Uncomfortably Entertaining

The 1985 American coming-of-age dramedy (drama/comedy), The Breakfast Club,  written, produced, and directed by John Hughes stars: Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy, as five students in Saturday detention and Paul Gleason also stars as the assistant principal.

The film opens to each of the characters arriving at Saturday detention, some getting dropped off by their respective parents and the viewers are given a glimpse into each of their lives. This film is especially hard-hitting, many aspects of the characters are embellished but undeniably relatable. This film bursts wide open the stigma associated with cliques that reside in a high school environment, in a life environment.

There were many scenes that made me as a viewer feel uncomfortable and that's because it is HARD-HITTING, these issues that the teens are going through are real relatable issues so common they’ve become cliche. [Lisa, your post is strong, as always; however, I would like you to expand this section. You may consider putting in a SPOILER ALERT!!! and discussing in greater detail what exactly it is that is HARD-HITTING]

This film engages it’s audience through the uncommon representation that not everything in life has a happy ending. At the end of the film- the five principal characters came to an understanding despite their differences although it didn’t mean that come Monday morning they would all be best friends and inseparable.This was very trivial to the film’s plot and overall message. You can connect with someone, get along, and even have an understanding, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to change everything… it at most will change your perspective on what you thought you knew and this film is an excellent example of that.

This film showed that different people can come together and come to an understanding, deeper to it’s core this film showed that we are all people and although we may be different- we’re not that different, we have much in common if only you take the time to get past the exterior.

The five principal characters were Brian, the brain; Andrew, the athlete; Allison, the basket-case; Claire, the princess; and John, the criminal. The characters, or Brian, the author of the paper to Assistant Principal Vernon that they were assigned to in detention explains that they don’t think they should write essays and tell him who they are when he’s already passed judgments on them, in those simplest term, but what they found out that was that they were each those things, in the process realizing they were more than their respective stereotypes.

I found this to be the perfect ending to such a hard-hitting dramedy, no doubt there were plenty of hilarious moments, but there was also an equal measure of drama. I think that is what made this movie so great and one of the greatest high school movies of all time.