Don't You Forget About It!!!

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2004)

The Breakfast Club
John Hughes' `The Breakfast Club' is probably the most famous teen movie of the 1980's, if not of all time. This is not to say that it's the best. But I remember it being shown as a compulsory video in health class in high school, and this because it was seen as the ideal movie to show teenage angst and troubles and the overcoming of stereotypes. I think our public education system gave the movie way too much credit in that department, but that doesn't mean they were completely misguided.
The movie features the story of Brian (the `brain'), Claire (the `princess'), Andy (the `jock'), Allison (the `weirdo'), and John (the `criminal'), five students unlucky enough to have been forced to endure a Saturday detention, spending eight hours in the same room, when they barely live in the same world. First off, were there really any schools in the 1980's that not only mandated weekend detentions, but made them 8 FREAKING HOURS LONG??? This seems to be a bit of a stretch, although many of the juvenile acts that landed the teens in detention in the first place would have warranted suspension.
The basic story is as follows: these five kids start the day with nothing to say to each other, but by the end of the movie they overcome their prejudices and become best friends, well, at least for the day, as even they realize. They open their hearts and pour out their souls, yadda yadda yadda, and realize that despite their differences, they all share the same problems: parental pressures, a world that wants to see them only one way, as one-dimensional characters, and societal stereotypes that more or less force them to be part of different worlds, when they are all basically ordinary teenagers. It's an interesting premise, not entirely clichéd given the period, and the way it all develops doesn't entirely seem fabricated.
I still find the character of the principal, Richard Vernon, now known for his famous line `I'll be cracking skulls' to be the most interesting. Yes, he's the typical teen movie `idiot adult' and ultimately a comic relief character. But he's a tad bit deeper than most. Unlike, say, Mr. Rooney, the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mr. Vernon is not nearly as one-sided nor worm-like. He's a life-long educator who loves children, but, somewhere along the line, just lost his footing and also succumbed to societal pressure of `what a principal should be.' The kids no longer respect him, and see him as an enemy, because he's a completely authoritarian figure. I have always been left wondering if, at the end of the movie, Mr. Vernon, who reads the short note the kids have left, understands where he went wrong and becomes a better person.
In the end, I recommend this movie as a must-see to those who have not had the privilege of a viewing, and for those who have, rent it again if it's been awhile. Some of the dialogue is a bit corny, but a lot of the lines are memorable, and while there isn't much a plot per se, the movie is character-driven and focuses on giving us glimpses of who these kids (and adults, in the case of the principal and janitor) are. The movie looks and sounds SO 80's that I can't help but love it. I'm sure that, if you're part of the vast minority who has never seen it, you will too.
Grade: B+