Mixed feelings

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2020)

As a millennial teenager I loved many late 90s and noughties coming of age films but never much delved into the classics that came before which helped to define the genre I so loved. Having finally got round to watching The Breakfast Club, I have mixed feelings about it.
As we get older we forget what it FEELS like to be a certain age. If like me, you watch this film for the first time round as an adult, the characters can come across as overly dramatic and temperamental, which can make them a little frustrating to watch. If you can try to consider what it was like being a teenager again and recall some of these feelings, you can perhaps see past these traits, or at least have more empathy for them. Having said this, I do feel I enjoyed it more now than I would have done if I had seen it when I was younger - I think I would've been underwhelmed and found the film too slow paced.
I thought the original introduction of the characters was interesting and they were all entertaining in their own way. I was expecting a little more in the way of meaningful relationships to develop though and this never happened. They were all arguing and quite nasty to eachother with only 15minutes left of the runtime - by the time they get let out it wasn't really enough to believe that any of them would be on good terms with eachother.
The romantic relationships that formed right at the end were both frustrating and disappointing. I appreciated that the relationship between Claire and Bender was hinted at throughout the film and not completely sprung out of the blue, unlike Andrew and Allison. They had a great deal of interaction together and a few suggestive looks were given. However, their get together was just so utterly diappointing given how he treated her, with no forgiveness or character arc from him.
Although I was disappointed by that aspect, I couldn't help but quite enjoy the majority of The Breakfast Club and still felt entertained. Maybe a classic for its time, but it would absolutely no way receive the same praise had it been released today.