The Breakfast Club Review

Breakfast Club. Dir. John Hughes
Feat. Judd Nelson (John Bender), Molly Ringwald (Claire Standish), Emilio Estevez (Andrew Clark), Anthony Hall (Brian Johnson), and Ally Sheedy (Allison Reynolds)
Universal Pictures, 1985.

In a world where people judge and criticize each other, we could all do with a little reminder once in a while that we are all in fact not so different to the person on our left, and the person on our right. The Breakfast Club is the perfect example of this. Five strangers enter that detention hardly knowing a thing about the other and yet are willing to judge them. They assume they know each other’s stories, oh, how wrong they are. As events unfold, our ferocious five form an alliance against their teacher (played by Paul Gleason). They work together to make sure they aren’t caught when causing trouble, but also rely on one another to have some fun.

In one particularly emotional scene, all five open up about their lives, revealing their deep dark secrets that no one outside that building knows. There is something beautiful about the way they let their guard down; it is such an intimate and raw scene that you as a viewer feel like an intruder. You are a part of their secret circle; you feel you must take their secrets to the grave. Hughes allows the majority of his story to unfold in the large classroom [more precisely it is the school library] in which the film’s young protagonists are confined for a Saturday of detention.

John Bender (Nelson), a prickly, weed-smoking anarchist, quickly becomes the focal point for the group’s interactions, as the lack of stimulation in their surroundings forces them to get to know each other. What unfolds is an intriguing examination of five typical, yet starkly different youths. Andrew (Estevez) is the conservative jock, Clare (Ringwald) the spoiled princess, Allison (Sheehy) the oddball and Brian (Hall) the socially awkward high achiever. Stereotypical the roles may be, but each character has a magnetic believability.

Possibly this film’s greatest triumph is that its main players are as relevant today as they were three decades ago. Some realism may be sacrificed in favor of engaging dialogue; it is slightly difficult to believe that five teenagers, having just met, would engage each other with the level of emotional candor on display here. Nonetheless, it works spectacularly.

In one hour and 30 minutes, director John Hughes creates a number of classic scenes that have gone down in cinematic history. The final scene of the film is perfection. I’m telling you now you’ll find it hard not to shed a tear as Bender strides across that football field as Simple Minds ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ blasts. If you’re after a classic feel-good film with a bit of everything in it, you’ve found it.