Their main topic, as they open up,
is their parents, who don't understand them and make their lives terrible by
paying too much attention to them or not enough.
“My home life is unsatisfying,” says
a student. Another says, “Well, everyone's home life is unsatisfying. Otherwise,
nobody would ever leave home.” Someone asks, “Are we gonna be like our parents?”
The reply: “It's unavoidable. When you grow up, your heart dies.”
The father (Ron Dean) of the jock
(Emilio Estevez) does his thinking for him. The brain (Anthony Michael Hall)
has thought of committing suicide because his father (John Hughes) demands
straight A's. The harsh father of the rebel (Judd Nelson) beats him.
When they finish explaining what's
wrong with their parents, they analyze their other big problem: peer pressure.
These five kids -- the three boys and two girls, an upper-middle-class princess
(Molly Ringwald), and a genetic loner (Ally Sheedy), acknowledge they are
prisoners of a student caste system that segregates them.
Joseph Gelmis said in his review, “It
should be clear, at this point, that "The Breakfast Club" is a group
therapy variation on an otherwise familiar collective portrait of a high school
class. Virtually the entire movie takes place inside the lofty school library
and a few other rooms in the building.” The two adults in the school are the principal
(Paul Gleason), a jailer and bully for a day, and the janitor (John Kapelos), a
realist who knows too many of the school’s secrets to be a critic.
Gelmis mentioned, “Given the
simplistic treatment of subject matter and the dramatic limitations of
confining the cast and action to a single set, "The Breakfast Club"
is slightly more interesting than one might expect. Writer-director John
Hughes, whose previous film was "Sixteen Candles," choreographs the
moves and verbal sparring and intimate disclosures of his young performers like
a ritual tribal ceremony.”
Gelmis continued, “Nelson, as the
troublemaker Bender, is very effective in the role of the provocateur who
disrupts the orderliness of the detention session and leads the others in
defying the rules. ("Being bad is fun, huh?" he says with a leer,
before turning them on with pot.)” Nelson has the best lines in the movie. When
he first enters the detention room, he insults the principal: "Does Barry
Manilow know you raided his closet?"
Bender and the principal are sworn
enemies. Gelmis noted, “And Bender's inflammatory disrespect goads the dean
into a sanctimonious fury. It takes a few beers in the basement with the
janitor, apparently a contemporary of his, to cool the dean down.” "If you
were 16," the janitor asks the principal, "what would you think of
you?" The principal shakes his head.
As each of the five students does
his or her emotional venting, we have to respect their pain. Gelmis noted, “To
share the growing pains of troubled kids is to become a godparent. You owe them
your goodwill and best wishes.” Finally, that's all these five students can suggest.
Nothing changes. You hear nothing you haven't heard before. However, you know
that for them it is happening for the first time, and they deserve compassion. Gelmis
ended his review by saying, “I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to see
"The Breakfast Club".”
My sister and I tried to watch this
on Netflix some years back, and we couldn’t watch it after about 45 minutes. I
did go back and rewatch after a couple of years past as, if I remember
correctly, a rental from the library, but I’m not a fan. People consider this
film a classic, but I thought it was ok. Maybe if I had grown up around the
time the film was released, I would have had a different thought about it,
which is why I just think this is an average film. If you want to watch this, it
is currently streaming on Max, but I don’t highly recommend it.
Next week I will be looking at another classic film in “John Hughes Month.”
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