The Breakfast Club

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2013)

"Five strangers with nothing in common, except each other." Located on the front cover of The Breakfast Club, this quote is a good summary of the movie. Five high school students: the Jock, the Criminal, the Princess, the Brain, and the Basket Case, with no similarities are stuck with each other during a Saturday detention. As the day starts out they do not associate with one another at all, but by the end of the day they all became friends. And to us they became known as: The Breakfast Club, a must see classic film that I would recommend to anyone. The entire movie setting took place all in one Saturday morning detention being almost completely dialogue-driven. John Hughes, the writer and director, does a great job of making it stand out as one of the classics. The Breakfast Club takes on two of the most critical of teen dilemmas: stereotypes and personal identity. Hughes had a number of other high school age movie successes in the 80s such as Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The Breakfast Club, however, has been deemed one of the best high school movies of all time by critics and also one of Hughes' greatest works. The movie has an all-star cast with five members of the famous "Brat Pack." Molly Ringwald (the Princess), Ally Sheedy (the Basket Case), Judd Nelson (the Criminal), Anthony Michael Hall (the Brain), and Emilio Estevez (the Jock) star in this motion picture and made it one of the most memorable movies with their outstanding performances. The actors did a wonderful job of taking on their very specific roles by portraying the stereotypical students that every high school in America can identify with. One of the most intriguing parts of the movie was when the students asked each other why they were in detention the audience learned a lot about each character and teens in general. The film also has one of the most memorable soundtracks from the 1980's with such songs as "Don't You (Forget About Me)". It plays at the end of the movie and delivers the message of this film about being able to be friends with each other despite our differences or our backgrounds. The Breakfast Club had a major influence on pop culture in the 80s and still continues to influence films today such as Easy A and Pitch Perfect almost thirty years later. The Breakfast Club has one of the most memorable endings a film can have as well. It gives the audience a new perspective on teen dilemmas. In the end, the characters are faced with a tough reality and ultimately the audience is left to assume the future of the students. This film influences the viewers (mainly teens) to step away from the status quo like the "Breakfast Club" proved was possible.