Every
year, major movie studios spend millions of dollars to make blockbuster movies
that feature explosions, gunfights, scantily clad women, exotic locations,
hundreds of special effects and cheesy one-liners. It’s fun if it is well done,
but it’s not always particularly memorable. However, some writers and directors
can tell a story that will define a generation by using one or two locations,
half a dozen characters and dialogue that people actually use in real life. In
1985 that movie was “The Breakfast Club” by John Hughes, a director whose work
is a source of inspiration for many young filmmakers today.
I was
born in the mid-80s, so I only discovered his work retroactively. The only
movies of Hughes I saw around the time they came out were “Home Alone” and its
sequel, but those were movies he produced, not directed. It might explain why
they are not as influential. Seeing “The Breakfast Club” on TV, a few years
after I was done with high school, it made think of the people I had met
throughout the three high schools I attended. None of them were in America, but
they certainly had some characters similar to the ones in Hughes’ movie.
The movie’s
setup is simplicity itself: five kids in a Chicago high school have detention
and are all confined in the school’s library on a Saturday for eight hours.
Their judgemental principal (Paul Gleason) keeps an eye on them, like a prison
warden making sure the convicts don’t get any ideas of escaping. They are not
to talk to each other, leave the room or even sleep. What they must do is write
a 1000-word essay explaining who they think they are. It would make for a
boring movie if the five were to simply obey the man and quietly write for the
whole movie, but luckily they are rule-breakers. They are in detention for a
reason after all.
Over
the course of the day the kids get to know each other by having tentative
conversations the minute the principal is away. It turns out each of the five
represent the archetypes of the high school student, or at least the archetypes
there were back then. Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is the all-popular athlete
everybody knows. Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) is the smart one who keeps to
himself and focuses on his studies. John (Judd Nelson) is the troublemaker who
is one bad deed away from being expelled by the principal. Claire (Molly
Ringwald) is the princess, the pretty girl who will most likely become prom
queen. Allison (Ally Sheedy) is the basket case, the lonely girl waiting to
explode.
In
any other situation most of these characters would never even say hello to each
other walking down the hallway, but as the hours go by they bond over their
common problems. The marijuana John brought with him helps a lot with the
bonding. They learn that like many kids they are afraid they might repeat
whatever mistakes their parents made. Then there is the fact they all share the
misfortune of being in high school, which most of the time is no picnic, no
matter what your place is on the food chain.
The one
character I wish had been more developed is the principal. When he chats with
the wise old janitor (John
Kapelos), the janitor tries to remind him he used to be in high school as well.
It would have been interesting to know who the principal thought he was
back then. What events made him think he could judge five individuals he
confined to one room on a Saturday?
But
Hughes didn’t write “The Breakfast Club” for principals or parents. This was to
give a voice to high school teenagers. He must have known what he was talking
about, since the movie was produced with a one million dollar budget and made
over fifty-one. Kevin Smith would perform a similar feat in 1994 with “Clerks,”
which replaced the high school setting for a New Jersey convenience store filled
with twenty-year-olds discussing pop culture. Proof that you don’t always need
a ton of money and explosions to make a movie people will love for years.
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