Ah, John Hughes. Whenever I think of him, I recognize him as the creator of some of the most relatable and influential films ever in the 80s and early 90s. And who can forget what is generally described as the Brat Pack films? This particular genre of filmmaking is one of the quintessential examples of how to make a good movie or tell a good story about teenagers going through their usual tribulations of adolescence. They included Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, and the holiday classic Home Alone. John Hughes also mastered his craft when he penned the National Lampoon’s Vacation films and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which many declare as the ultimate Thanksgiving movie.
However, 40 years ago this month, John Hughes unleashed a most unusual high school movie. It did not employ the usual high school clichés I would have expected in such a setting. Instead, it focused on five ordinary teenagers who huddled together, had some fun, ultimately poured their hearts out to each other, and unexpectedly snuck a peek into each other’s backgrounds, histories, and personalities.
That film is The Breakfast Club, and because of what it achieved, it did not take long for me to declare it one of the best films John Hughes ever made.
Now, what is the story of this movie? It’s relatively simple, and once I go into details about it, you might already catch on to one of the movie’s biggest strengths.
In Shermer High School, five teenagers, a ‘basketcase’ named Allison, a ‘criminal’ named John Bender, a ‘princess’ named Claire, a ‘jock’ named Andy, and a ‘brain’ named Brian – ‘my condolences,’ said John Bender – all went to Saturday detention, where they would’ve spent nine hours of their day inside the school library. There, they were tasked by the stingy principal, Richard Vernon, to write down a personal essay going into detail about themselves and what they’d done wrong. Then, as the day went on, the five teenagers became concerned less about writing the essay and more about breaking away from their assignment and causing a ruckus throughout the library and the school halls, all while trying not to get caught by Principal Vernon. But even before they started to mellow down, they slowly slipped into each other’s company and got to know each other better through a series of different trials and errors and activities together.
And that’s it.
As I said, this highlighted some of the more distinct aspects of this movie that set it apart from most other high school movies.
Let me go into greater detail.
With most high school movies, you usually see the main hero going to school doing their usual business, whether it’s to become the most popular kid in school or fit in with the popular crowd and try to juggle it with the usual antics that come with the school environment. But here? While it took place in a high school setting, it only took place within its library 80% of the time, and its focus was only on five teenagers as they shot the breeze, went wild, and opened up about each other as normal teenagers could. I find that such a big deal because what The Breakfast Club offers is a complete change of pace from your everyday high school film formula and is as groundbreaking as it is eye-opening. I like how it left me feeling like I was in their company as they tried to open up to each other about themselves rather than go through all the societal pressures that come with high school life. If anything, that was mostly relegated to backstory expositions from all of them. And I don’t need to see it to feel it; it takes just a glimpse of their background, and I can already see where they’re coming from.
So, with that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the characters and see why they worked so well, shall we?
All in all, there are only seven main characters to discuss here. Yet, this is one of those rare examples of filmmaking I know of where you don’t need to have an entire crowd of characters to tell a juicy story. You need to focus on whichever designated characters deserve such a spotlight and establish them with appropriate characteristics and narrative instincts.
One of the more tragic cases of the original five teenagers would be John Bender. The first time you’d see him, you’d think he’d be the type of guy who would have deliberately caused trouble, right? The troublemaker, the rule breaker, the guy who would usually have not abided by any rules and caused mayhem wherever he strutted along?
That’s what most of the characters and even Shermer High School society would’ve expected him to be. But as soon as I saw him unleash himself more and elaborate more on his past lifestyle, it turned out he constantly struggled with family life back home, for it seemed to me that his parents, especially his father, were very abusive towards him, as demonstrated by the scar left on his arm from a lit cigar. It was no easier to process when I saw Bender being continually reprimanded by Principal Vernon every time he deliberately stepped out of line, whether it was appropriate or out of spite. It got to a point where Vernon thought of some of Bender’s antics as the straw that broke the camel’s back and dragged him away from the library and locked him in the school storage closet to spend the rest of his Saturday, along with having him under his thumb for the next two months worth of Saturday detention.
So, when I saw Bender act out his innermost instincts with either Principal Vernon or his cohorts, I was left at a loss as to whether he would’ve meant any harm or how much of it was all just a ruse, a defense mechanism that he upheld because of what he dealt with back home. How much of it was for real? How much of it was for show? And what would it have taken for him to wake up to the reality of his conditions, his family life, and how he was socially?
The jock himself, Andrew, seemed like a decent yet no-nonsense guy who attempted to be reasonable with his peers about what’s right and what’s wrong, noticeably with Bender. Whenever Bender made some suggestive, lewd, and threatening comments towards Claire, Andy showcased his quick reflexes when he made his moves all over Bender. So, I can see how he’s all muscle but also had a heart underneath his athletic image.
However, as he expressed his side of the story, he had to work his way into being one of the best jocks in the school if it meant playing dirty to get there, which he regretted very much.
Case in point, he deliberately picked on a little kid by taping his butt together and peeling it back to get all the hair off. It was seemingly done to impress his father, who tried to toughen him up and tell him to be at his absolute best. Andy had since become remorseful of his actions and what he did to prove himself as number one, especially in the eyes of his parents, until he was left wondering whether being number one was worth it if it meant hurting other people to make it there. His resentment towards his father made him trickle into the same waters as Bender regarding his family background. As even Bender puts it:
I think your old man and my old man should get together and go bowling.
Hopping over to the quote ’princess,’ Claire was seemingly the A-student among the high school crowd and did everything it took to make a name for herself. She was also snooty and cared about nothing and no one but her own business; she started as dismissive towards her peers and complained about being sent to Saturday detention as if she wasn’t meant to be there.
I don’t remember what she did for her to be sent to Saturday detention. But when she got into more detail about her social experiences and family life, it became clear that they had challenged her from every angle until she felt overwhelmed by all the expectations she dealt with. Her parents were just in the middle of a divorce, and they used her as a borderline scapegoat to get back at each other. On the school side, she had done her best to uphold her image as one of the top-ranking students at Shermer High School. But much like Andy, she also did what she did by maintaining her public image, even if it meant expressing some ill will towards other people who she was told should not have been any of her business.
And while she was right to be defensive against John Bender, I found the relationship that bloomed between them most fascinating. It started as pretty sickening and conveyed the usual bully/victim antics you would expect. But as they spoke to each other longer, when John Bender began to let his guard down, there’s a possibility that it was because Claire noticed something about John Bender and, as such, slowly wormed her way past his defenses until she reached who he truly was deep down.
Next, there’s the brain himself, Brian, who was the most committed to getting the job done and sticking to the task expected of him, no matter how out of line it seemed. Between the original five, he was the most vocal about suggesting that they stick to their writing assignments about themselves and their past misdeeds. In fact, he seemed to be the one most willing to write his essay while the others around him poked into each other’s business or diverged from their expected tasks. He seemed destined to prove himself as the type of student who would usually have tried to work his way up the school totem pole regarding academic achievements.
However, just like Claire, he admitted that his drive to be the best was also out of pressure. When he had to make a ceramic elephant lamp in shop class, where it would’ve gone off when he pulled its trunk, he got an F because it wouldn’t have turned on. He felt ashamed because that meant that anything that would’ve thrown his consistent academic records out of whack was looked at as an automatic failure of achievements to him and his parents. He was so distraught by it that he contemplated committing suicide. Of course, in a surprisingly side-splitting turn of events, though the gun he brought in was the reason he was sent to Saturday detention, it was a flare gun, and it scorched his locker from inside when it went off.
And then you have the ‘basketcase,’ Allison. For around the movie’s first half, she barely spoke or emoted, besides just expressing herself while saying nothing and doing her own thing. It included drawing artwork and making an unusual masterpiece out of her sandwich. However, when she finally spoke out, it may have been a slow turn, but she gradually revealed some facts about herself that her peers thought of as out of the ordinary, even for her. For example, she claimed that she was a nymphomaniac and successfully had sex with a shrink that she saw regularly. But later on, as they spoke more, she finally admitted that she was a compulsive liar. So, whatever she said, she would have just told others for her own amusement.
Impressively, this makes her look like the most intriguing of the five high schoolers because it paints her in a more unpredictable light. By that point, it honed her weirdness factor, not just because her activities were unusual but because I’d have had no idea who she was, what she was sent to Saturday detention for, and how she would’ve expressed herself or gotten along with others. However, even though she had some trouble socially back home and with school life, she had done nothing to warrant being sent to Saturday detention in the first place. She also admitted that she hopped over there by choice.
And as for Allison being given a makeover at the end by Claire, let me set the record straight. Outside of it being a good look on her, I saw it as Allison no longer being willing to shut other people out but rather being more open, outgoing, and willing to put her trust in others. It felt as much about Allison letting out the real her as Bender’s turning point was about letting out the real him.
And let’s talk about Principal Vernon. As with most high school films from around this era, he was shown as a pretty abrasive authority figure with a generally low tolerance of teenagers and their wild antics. It was especially noticeable whenever he berated John Bender for his troubles, and sometimes, he seemed to be as much of a bully towards John Bender as Bender himself was interpreted to be by the rest of his peers.
However, one scene in the film cemented his intrigue as a character for me. For all his unpleasant actions towards Bender and the other kids, when Vernon relaxed with the janitor, he admitted that he used to be exactly like them when he was their age. So, there’s a sense that he dreaded how he acted and wanted to keep the teenagers in line to ensure they wouldn’t end up going down the same primrose path he had avoided.
That detail felt most welcomed because it painted this otherwise unsatisfactory authority figure in a broader, more engaging light. It showed us that even though Vernon talked and looked down upon the teenagers in Saturday detention, he feared that unless they were disciplined, they could have ended up being something or someone worse than they were at that moment.
As for the janitor, Carl Reed, he didn’t do or say much in the movie other than mopping the floors and having passing chitchats with the main characters. But between the five teenagers’ wild antics and the principal’s strict disciplinary nature, he seemed to act more like the middle ground, the type of guy who knew what was right for people like Principal Vernon while empathizing with the plight of presumably the student body. Even if he boasted about being the eyes and ears of the high school grounds, it’s still evident that he didn’t hold it against them and was a little more in the same league as them in terms of dealing with everyday issues while being mature enough to know why that was and what could’ve been done about it.
I’ve already discussed each character, and I feel like I just went through another of the best parts of The Breakfast Club that gave me a special place for it in my heart.
Another aspect that gives The Breakfast Club its edge is the slight tenderness apparent throughout the film, courtesy of John Hughes’ writing and directing. Whenever he focused on a designated group of characters in a movie, he excelled in conveying every emotional thought-processing apparent in the characters.
But it gets better; here’s what else I applaud the film for. Usually, within the high school environment, I see the commonly attributed stereotypes tossed around to describe the designated people who go there. The jock, the girl with the glasses, the guy with the glasses, the jock, the delinquent, the princess, the nutcase, the socialite, the loner, the queen bee, everything that describes each type of teenager in the most simplistic ways possible. But in this case, The Breakfast Club was smart enough to introduce us to five such stereotypical figures from high school and see them live up to their image until I get to know them more and see them do more things I wouldn’t have expected them to do. Because of this, it opened my eyes concerning who these high schoolers were, not as society saw them, but as people instead.
The characters were something to write home about, but how about the actors? How were they like in this movie?
Starting with Anthony Michael Hall, he lived up to his brainy image as Brian, all right, but Hall also honed a little bit of modesty in his character. It convinced me that as nerdy as Brian was, he wasn’t without insecurities whenever he racked his brains around his commitments, what he failed to live up to, and how devastated it made him, for he believed that one failed task was a damning achievement.
I also have nothing but soft spots for Ally Sheedy as Allison. Her smart-alecky nature and introverted personality helped hone her character’s more laid-back and shrinking aspects. Yet, her expressions, looks, and overall dark mystique only highlighted her more mysterious nature until she finally expressed herself and admitted who she was, why she was there, and what she’d been dealing with in or out of school.
I thought Judd Nelson owned it as John Bender every step of the way. He felt like he upheld his ‘bad boy’ attitude and glided along with it as if he knew the ins and outs of every bad boy who wanted to make a name for himself, even if it would’ve painted him in a shroud of infamy. But at the same time, for all his ‘bad boy’ instincts, Nelson also snuck in enough human qualities to Bender to have it so that when I saw John Bender in action throughout the movie, I would’ve been at a loss as to how much of a bully John Bender was and whether there was a more tender and understanding human being hiding underneath his rugged surface.
Molly Ringwald felt natural in conveying the general ‘popular girl’ image, which had been noticeable in Claire since she first set foot in the school for Saturday detention. Also, her expressions and mannerisms helped hone the borderline pretentiousness apparent in Claire as she attempted to maintain what she believed would’ve painted her as a praiseworthy figure in her high school, only to gradually express her innermost rage and grief until I started seeing how Claire truly felt about her social image and how much of a toll it took on her the longer she kept it up.
At first, I thought Emilio Estevez seemed a tad modest as he conveyed the high school jock, Andy. But when he unleashed his inner outrage and let himself loose with his reflexes on people like John Bender, I finally began to grasp just how much of an athlete Andy was. It was all thanks to Emilio Estevez’s quick thinking and inner nerve, plus his overall modesty that he carried with him even during his more extreme performances concerning Andy’s athletic abilities. The longer I saw Estevez do his thing in the movie, the more I noticed Andy’s commitment as an athlete. And much like Molly Ringwald, he perfectly expressed how pained he was when he reflected on his more negative actions and what those said about him and his family.
Paul Gleason felt excellent in conveying Principal Vernon with the right amount of high authority to remind me that he was watching over a band of troublemakers while also making it clear that he did not trust them and meant to watch over them like a watchdog to see that they were not up to no good again even during Saturday detention. Yet, for how he generally responded when John Bender did himself in, the inner contempt and disgust Gleason conveyed when Vernon took John Bender down to the storage closet highlighted how spiteful he was against teenagers, especially towards unruly people like he thought John Bender was. He made his distaste for teenagers as clear as day.
Of course, again, what helped subdue his spiteful distaste for teenagers was his retrospective concerns regarding how he believed the teenagers could have turned out if they grew up without the discipline he thought would’ve been proper for them. Even after all the abrasive things that he had done either as an example or to the teenagers, there’s still a part of him that just made me understand why Vernon acted the way he did and what he hoped the kids would’ve learned. I love how the film was smart enough to paint Principal Vernon as a generally spiteful figure, but never to the point where he was too unsympathetic or deserving of ridicule. Gleason owned Vernon’s sense of authority and disgust, and even during the smaller moments where he had to express his more human qualities, he allowed that to be shown as clear as day, too, painting him with more complexity than I anticipated.
As for John Kapelos, who played the janitor, he portrayed him as a seemingly regular guy who felt like the brains and heart behind the movie. He occasionally boasted about what he’d have heard while mopping the floors no matter where he went in the high school. So, it was apparent he would have been more mindful and aware of whatever issues the high schoolers dealt with. Still, he also made it so it wouldn’t have overshadowed his more humanistic aspects, where he paid attention to everyone in the school, including the principal, and thought long and hard about what would be considered best for any of them.
But it’s not just the actors individually. One of the movie’s most substantial aspects lay in the relationships that Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, and Ally Sheedy expressed for each other. At first, their chemistry started as very flimsy, for they first walked into the library as strangers, and it seemed that they would have remained that way throughout the rest of Saturday detention. But whenever they acted individually, in pairs, or as a group, once any of them acted in their own will or did some things that were considered improper to do either for Saturday detention or even on the school grounds, then they started to let themselves loose some more until they finally expressed themselves for who they were deep down. In a way, the troubles they dealt with that they were supposed to write in their essays to Principal Vernon were saved for when they talked to each other instead.
And the whole sequence with the five teenagers sitting around and talking? This scene lasted for a good chunk of the film’s third act, and it made the movie for me. It was basically Allison, Claire, Brian, Andy, and John Bender all sitting together in a circle and talking to each other about themselves and their problems.
When you listen to each of them as they lunged into their life stories about what they’d done wrong and why they were sent to Saturday detention for it, that’s when I started seeing the movie lunging forth with taking the ordinary high school stereotypes and peeling them back layer by layer until finally, I see them for their barest and most elemental humanity. The more issues they clued me in on, the more I went from looking at them as the classic high school stereotypes to ultimately finding something to relate to about not one or the other but everyone.
All these characters went through some hardship in their lives, either in school or with their families, that they did not feel comfortable cluing other people in on. And when they did, they found themselves being challenged both outwardly and inwardly regarding what they considered the proper thing to do or the proper steps forward in a rehabilitating sense. Because Saturday detention was about setting people back on the right path, this kind of environment and practice did nothing but wonders for these characters because they worked it out in ways even Principal Vernon would not have anticipated them to have. The more the characters opened themselves up to each other, the clearer it became how much they were hurting deep down. The fact that they opened themselves up to each other as they have invited the likelihood and question as to whether they could have had a chance of remaining friends after this whole ordeal, as both Brian and then Claire wondered. Fortunately, as we’ve seen from the blossoming relationship between John Bender and Claire and also between Andy and Allison, that’s reason enough for me to believe that, yes, all five of these teenagers might have had a chance to stay in touch with each other once they got back to their regular lives in school or with their families, if for nothing more than to be shoulders to cry on.
Their confessions got to a point where they made me feel like I was participating in what’s equivalent to professional help, where I listened to the participants confess their problems to each other and wonder to themselves where they’ve gone wrong and what the right step would’ve been to take next after all this. Everything about this scene felt so transcendent and sucked me so much into its more tender, psychological aspects that I became lost in their conversations and forgot that these were teenagers being upfront about themselves.
And just when you thought the scene couldn’t have possibly gotten any better, here’s the icing on the cake: almost none of it was scripted. It was John Hughes’ idea to have it completely ad-libbed. That makes the characters and performances feel more natural, poignant, profound, soul-searching, and human.
However much of each character’s background was thrown into the film by the actors or pertained to how John Hughes wrote it in the first place, it was evident that each actor’s contributions to this scene invited me as the viewer to look deeper into each characters’ psychological phases until I saw them for where they came from, how they grew up to be, and why they’ve struggled with such crippling ordeals in their lives. That speaks volumes to me; once John Hughes, a skillful writer when it came to writing high school movies, had it where he entrusted the teenage actors to take the lead in steering the movie and its characters and story forward with what they considered to be intuitive, instinctive details worthy of adding to the film, it helped the film take on a life of its own and touch me in ways that I never anticipated to be.
Long story short, with the actors throwing in their aspects to the characters and their conversation, they helped flesh them out in ways I never expected them to be fleshed out. It adds pure dynamics to the situation and the movie’s canvas, making this scene the epitome of cinematic communions.
Speaking of which, the location was also charming and irresistible.
The movie was about these teenagers, how it allowed each other and the audience to get a closer look at them, and how they became the way they were as people; hence, I was reading them like a book. And I don’t think the movie could’ve picked a more perfect, fittingly symbolic setting than a library. It also worked because it reinforced the sense that I was looking into the past background, lives, and dilemmas of not one character but multiple characters who were in the same boat. That’s another factor that added to the relatability of this film and why it is so special.
Of course, it’s not just the acting, characters, and this phenomenal exposition scene that made the movie for me. It was also nice enough to throw in a helping of music to spice up the occasion, and many of the songs chosen for this movie were excellent.
The song playing when the kids ran down the halls, Fire in the Twilight by Wang Chung, jazzed up the situation with just the right amount of rock rhythms to help me buy into the characters’ willingness to run wild and free, all while avoiding Principal Vernon as he walked around the halls at the same time.
I’m also very fond of the song, We Are Not Alone, by Karla DeVito, which played while the high schoolers let themselves loose and ran wild throughout the library. It exposed more of an anticipatory instinct when breaking out of your shell and doing what you usually would not have done there, whether on your own or with friends you never expected to make. It disavowed anything relating to reasonable logic and soaked in all the anarchy, companionship, and wild antics that reflected how the teenagers felt at that moment.
The rest of the songs, mainly those from the album, were also good and conveyed an enjoyable, upbeat, and no less outgoing vibe that reflected the characters’ feelings in the film.
However, as good as all those songs were, they were nothing compared to what is considerably the film’s main theme song, Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds.
It touched upon the joys of the companionship to be felt when it’s within reach and the underlying melancholia concerning having to part ways before returning to one’s regular life. But it did so where it left those who listened to it looking back on their fateful encounters in a positive light as if it helped ignite something in them that only would’ve helped them forward either on their own or with the people they trust and love. The rhythms, vocals, and music just soared in the song and helped it establish itself as a pure 80s rock song with great expressions and an innermost heart and soul.
Now, there is one thing I noticed many people find unrealistic about this movie. For all of its truthful expositions of the teenage characters, the way their dialogue was written is considerably too adult to be considered authentic or age-appropriate.
That may be, but here’s how I see it. In real life, if you notice someone in a designated age group saying things you expect them to say but saying them in ways that seem very adult, direct, and convey a lot of truth, does that make it feel less authentic?
And another thing. Dr. Seuss was once tasked to write with nothing but preschool dialogue in his arsenal, but was he not skillful with it when he wrote stories like Green Eggs and Ham and especially The Cat in the Hat?
The Breakfast Club felt just as skillful with teenage dialogue.
As long as it tapped into the collective psyche felt by the designated age group it represented, you could barely go wrong. And considering how sucked in I was by the characters’ dilemmas every time I saw this film, I still declare it good writing.
I do not know what more needs to be said about this movie that most other people may not have. Everything about this movie feels so simple, yet so profound that it only gives it its muscle as a film and becomes something that has been held in such high esteem for many years on end, and rightfully so. The characters were identifiable, the acting was on point, the music had both the zesty 80s flavoring, and the teenage instincts that jibed well with the film’s story, and the story itself was straightforward yet laid back and expositional. It helped set this movie apart from most other high school movies that would more likely have followed a basic formula as most other successful high school movies would’ve done, only this did so where it used the high school background as nothing more than a platform to launch into something unanticipated and surprisingly moving.
It is pristine, far from preachy, far from pretentious, sensitive, sensible, laid-back, outgoing, funny, sad… dear God, this movie is just a masterpiece.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
My Rating
A high A
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