The Breakfast Club Synopsis and Review

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2015)

It is a Saturday at Sherman High School and five students have earned the "privilege" of an all-day session of detention. The group consists of five differing, yet common, high school stereotypes. There is the jock (Emilio Estevez), the nerd (Anthony Michael Hall), the rich girl (Molly Ringwald), the troublemaker (Judd Nelson), and the "weird" girl. (Ally Sheedy). The teens have all earned themselves a full day of detention by means of their different personalities. The day begins with Principal Vernon (Paul Gleason) harshly laying down the laws of the day, one of which involves the students writing an essay about who the students think they are. The rest of the day revolves around the group's boredom which leads to personality clashes along with mischief. The personality clashes lead to verbal altercations between members of the group while the mischief includes an array of activities from theft to recreational drug use and everything in between. No one in the group is spared the bullying brought on by his or her high school clique. The arguments are largely instigated by the troublemaker who initially targets the rich girl. When the jock comes to her defense, he too is added to the verbal assault. The nerd initially attempts to keep the peace which, in turn, earns him his share of the bullying. The "weird" girl says nothing for the first half of the movie but baffles the rest of the group by her gross habits and actions. As the movie progresses the altercations between the students begin to make them realize that perhaps they are not as different as they think. As the movie comes toward its end, the students begin to have more constructive conversations that allow them to better understand each other. By the end of the day, the group has not only overcome their differences, but also has put a unique twist on their essay assignment. Review
The jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the troublemakers, and the outcasts are groups that everyone is familiar with if they spent a day in high school. We all belonged to one or more of these cliques in one way or the other. Stereotypes separate these groups while in high school and long after. In John Hughes's "The Breakfast Club," a long day in detention brings a group of five students together while overcoming the social barriers that separate them. The 1985 dramatic comedy has a character that everyone can relate to. Whether one sees him or herself in a character or can identify the qualities of an acquaintance, there is character in the movie that can be identified with. The acting quality is excellent and what makes this practical in the movie. The acting quality is crucial to "The Breakfast Club's" success not only in Judd Nelson's role as a central figure in plot development, but also in the entire casts ability to keep the movie interesting despite a lack of setting change throughout. The cast as a whole keeps the movie interesting despite an abundance of dialog paired with a lack of action. Approximately ninety percent of the movie takes place in the library. There is seldom a change of setting making the acting all the more impressive. Five characters in one room keep an audience's attention for well over an hour. This is a result of the intensity the actors provide throughout the course of the film. From Miss Ringwald's screaming and crying in retaliation to Nelson's genuinely angry assaults to the whole cast sitting in tears as each learns more about the other's problems intensity is maintained throughout the film. Janet Maslim shares in her review, "Personalities are dissected; tears are shed. The kids, each representing a different teen stereotype, come to understand each other. They strike up friendships. They denounce their parents. They decide that 'when you grow up, your heart dies'" (Maslim 1). As Maslim describes, much goes on over the span of the movie. Keep in mind, as aforementioned, all these different events take place in one room of a library. The cast does a great job of keeping the attention of the audience while only having limited working space. With a lack of working props, their dialog is one the few tools they have at their expense to keep the movie interesting. It would be misplaced not to bestow a notable mention upon Ally Sheely for her role as the "psycho" outcast. To her credit, she keeps her character interesting while not uttering a line of speech for almost half of the movie. She uses body language and facial expressions with great success making her character an equally important force in the movie despite an initial lack of verbal communication. This is not to take away from the performance of the other members of the cast. They all dramatize their characters appropriately for the situation of the film. It is easy to come to the conclusion that characters like Nelson's and Ringwald's are overly dramatic when all the screaming and crying they contribute is first observed. However, it is important to remember if the cast sat down and talked civilly for an hour and a half without raising a voice or shedding a tear, saying the movie would be boring would be an overstatement.