A classic "real people" movie.

Rating: 9/10 (7 May 1999)

The detention handed out to the characters of this movie totally failed to serve its purpose from the point of view of the sadistic, blinkered principal of the school. From the point of view of the students involved, however, it taught them things that can never be taught in school - that everyone is a person, everyone counts, and those weirdos in the corner who you wouldn't usually be seen dead with are real people with real feelings and real lives, who could maybe just teach you something about your own lifestyle and prejudices.
This is probably going to overtake "Some Kind Of Wonderful" as my favourite John Hughes movie - having only just seen it almost 15 years after it came out, I'm still wondering how I managed to miss seeing it before. Everybody identifies with the characters in these movies, which isn't surprising, as these are very much films about people rather than events - a rare commodity indeed. In a world where effects and action are all too frequently valued over dialogue and character development in movies, Hughes reminds us that you _can_ still generate 95 minutes of classic cinema based simply around five teenagers talking in a library...
So, just who _do_ we think we are, anyway?