When Hughes still knew what he was doing

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2015)

Ahh, The Breakfast Club. As I'm sure many will agree, watching this in your teens is a pretty interesting experience as few films you watch at that age deal with high school life and all its pressures with a lot of empathy. Because I saw it as a teen and liked it, I have a lot of strong, positive feelings toward it. Though as time goes on and because of the generational gap, you start to dislike certain things with some scenes becoming pretty cringe worthy. But it probably resides at the top of the mountain of films in this particular category.
Right off the bat, we're introduced to our merry band of misfits: Andrew (Emilio Estevez), the athlete; Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), the brain; Claire, the princess (Molly Ringwald); Bender (Judd Nelson), the criminal and Allison (Ally Sheedy), the basket case. They have only one thing in common: they've all in their own way broken the school's rules and must spend the entire Saturday afternoon in the school library and write an essay on 'who they think they are', basically reflecting on their misbehavior. This essay is assigned to them by tough-as-nails assistant principal Richard Vernon, who symbolizes the 'villain' of this film, the school system and society in general (the parents, etc.) who are unable to invest the time and effort required to truly communicate with these children. As time goes on, our five characters begin to communicate and grow closer through a combination of humor and confrontational dialogue through which they all start to see each other not as their stereotype, but as a complex person and they realize they're not so different after all.
This might sound horribly clichéd, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind: one, with The Breakfast Club, director/writer John Hughes basically popularized this type of film aimed squarely at teenagers and quickly became known as the voice of the teens who felt deeply misunderstood by everyone around them. (Hughes would expand on this theme with Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.) In other words, you can't simply judge this film with the mindset of today's world. On the other hand, as exemplified by the film's continued success, the film has attained a timeless quality. It's empathy for high school students with all its associated pressures has remained popular and thus relevant, even today. Two, what's crucial to this film's success are the actors. It's not often a film features mainly a group of actors the age of students who never act in a way that feels cheap or unrealistic. Despite any grievances one might have with Hughes' screenplay, the cast delivers it honestly from beginning to end. Also, there's the quite realistic way the group starts to communicateever so slowly. They don't start talking immediately, but remain silent at first, get bored, start picking on each other, etc. All these little interactions contribute to the end of the film when they're openly talking about and confronting each other with their thoughts, fears, doubts, lifestyles, etc.
Going back to the grievances with the screenplay, there are a few things that have aged about as well as Hughes' career: for one thing, the film exudes the 80s out of its every pore, for better or worse. Seen today, it's likely some people would find the inclusion of a montage clip with rock music to be unnecessary and over-the-top. There's also the character of Vernon who exudes so much anger and has it in for these kids in such a way that it becomes hard to really take him seriously. He's the one-note adult who symbolizes all adults that fail to take these kids seriously and listen to them.
Also, Hughes' comedy occasionally falls flat and feels inauthentic for a film claiming to speak for misunderstood teens. The scene where Andrew comes walking out of a room as high as a kite and starts to run around, 'raging against the machine' as it were, until he breaks a glass pane with his screams, all backed up by 80s rock feels clichéd nowadays despite its honest attempt at instilling the same, heartfelt enthusiasm in the viewer. There are a few scenes where the comedy is played solely for laughs and doesn't feel real, for instance the one where the group falls asleep and Vernon walks in, telling them to wake up. They of course remain fast asleep that is until Vernon asks who has to go to the bathroom upon which they all quickly – and in unison – raise their arms. It's this type of humor that in retrospect signals the trash Hughes would eventually write for films like Home Alone 3.
But in the end, the good way outstrips the bad. With its cross-generational appeal, positive message and great acting, it's easy to see why this film has remained – and most likely will remain – so popular and appealing. When, despite the 80s clichés, your film still remains popular with teens even today, you know you've done something right.