St. Elmo's Fire

Plot synopsis:
Recent Georgetown University graduates Alec, his girlfriend Leslie, Kevin, Jules, and Kirby are waiting to hear about the conditions of their friends Wendy, a sweet-natured girl devoted to helping others, and Billy, a former frat boy and now reluctant husband and father, after a car accident. At the hospital, Kirby sees a female medical student named Dale, with whom he has been infatuated since college.
The group gathers at their favorite college hangout, St. Elmo’s Bar. Billy has been fired from the job Alec helped him secure and his marriage is unstable. At their apartment, Alec pressures Leslie to marry him, but she is convinced they are not ready. Kirby is telling Kevin of his love for Dale when Billy shows up, asking to spend the night as he cannot deal with his wife.
Kevin worries about his romantic life when Jules accuses him of being gay and loving Alec. When he visits Alec and Leslie for dinner, Alec confesses to Kevin that while buying lingerie for Leslie he had sexual intercourse with the saleswoman.
Billy and Wendy get drunk together and Wendy reveals that she is a virgin. She and Billy kiss but Wendy insists they just remain friends, especially since she realizes Billy is taking advantage of her crush on him.
During Halloween at St. Elmo’s Bar, Jules reveals to a disapproving Leslie that she is having an affair with her married boss. Billy sees his wife with another man in the crowd and attacks him. Billy is thrown out of the bar but reconciles with his wife. The girls confront Jules about the affair and her reckless spending but she insists that everything is under control.
Kirby takes a job working for Mr. Kim, a wealthy Korean businessman, and invites Dale to a party he is holding at Mr. Kim’s house. Wendy arrives with Howie, a boy her parents set her up with. Alec announces that he and Leslie are engaged, upsetting Leslie. She confronts him about her suspicions of his infidelity and the two break up. Alec is also angry with Kevin, who he believes confessed everything to Leslie. After the party, Jules gives Billy a ride home. As she is about to confide in him, Billy makes a pass at her. Furious, Jules throws him out of her car.
Still pursuing Dale, Kirby drives to the ski lodge where she is staying but learns she has a boyfriend. His borrowed car becomes stuck in the snow and Dale and her boyfriend invites him to come inside. The next morning, as Kirby prepares to leave Dale’s cottage, Dale tells him she is flattered by his affections. He kisses her, and she does not resist. Kirby then takes a photo with Dale and departs the lodge, happy.
Leslie goes to Kevin’s place to stay the night after the breakup and discovers photographs of her. Kevin confesses his love for her, and the two sleep together but the next morning, Alec comes by to apologize to Kevin for attacking him the night before. Alec is shocked to find Leslie there and the two argue over his infidelity.
Wendy meets her father at a café and announces she wants to be independent from her family and move into her own place. Jules has been fired from her job and fallen behind on her credit card payments; as a result, her possessions have been seized. Jules locks herself in her apartment and opens the windows, intending to freeze to death. The friends attempt to coax her out, but she is unresponsive. Kirby fetches Billy, who landed a job at a gas station courtesy of Kevin, to calm Jules down. Billy convinces Jules to come back out.
Wendy moves into her own place, where Billy visits and informs her that he is getting a divorce and moving to New York City. The two make love as a going away present. At the bus station, the group gathers once more to say goodbye to Billy. Billy urges Alec to make up with Leslie but Leslie declares that she does not want to date anyone for a while. Alec and Kevin make up and the group decides to get brunch. However, they decide not to go to St. Elmo's bar and instead choose Houlihan's because there are "not so many kids" there.

Tags: cult, romantic

Review:
Seven friends -- fresh out of college and in their mid-20's -- find themselves struggling with real-life issues such as breaking away from an over-bearing family, getting married, raising children, finding a career, finding love and creating an identity, all while trying to maintain a tight-knit friendship with one another as they booze it up at "St. Elmo's," a bar that perhaps served as the grandfather to the coffee shop in "Friends" or even the pub in "How I Met Your Mother." They laugh, they fight, they learn, and by the end of the flick, things have changed, but their "fire" has remained.You might recognize three stars of "The Breakfast Club" -- Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez -- who have magically turned into college grads, and alongside Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe and Mare Winningham, round out the solid cast of "St. Elmo's Fire." A good decade before bringing a perfectly good "Batman" franchise to its knees, writer/director Joel Schumacher did what few films could do with the "Brat Pack" in tow.
This is a film about 23 year olds trying to find themselves, and the authenticity of having people that age, going through those things in their real lives, helps the performances to be truthful.
It's the vulnerability and the childlike appearance that makes you buy into the story and want to follow it to the end to see if the friendships can remain intact.The star-filled cast does a great job throughout, and a film like this makes you wonder where these guys have gone.
Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, and Judd Nelson are all pitch-perfect in their roles along with Mare Winningham playing the friend that is so totally different from everyone else in the group, yet believable because we all have a friend like that.
I'll start by addressing complaints I've heard about this; it's said to be excessively 80's, and I basically get what they mean(not growing up in the decade, being 4 years old when it ended, I have no recollection of it), and if that is likely to bother you, then yeah(the man often does not know when to say stop to the designers; I refer you to his short stint at superhero movies...
Yeah, it was a nostalgia trip (I remember watching it a few times on cable ten years ago) but it also has some decent scenes and it really captures a "moment," both for recent college grads and for those of us who were enchanted by the brat pack in the 80s.I've been reading other people's reviews;  several of them whine about how "self-absorbed" these characters are.Well...um...
I did not see the characters as shallow, superficial, or selfish, but just as regular people like myself and my friends.Even now that I have left my twenties, I can go back and still appreciate St. Elmo's Fire; not just for the 80's nostalgia (though that is a big draw, I must admit) but because I perceive the characters as living stories that I can identify with in parts.
Especially as a slightly more mature adult, I can look back and say, "Yeah, I remember going through that." or "I knew someone like that five years ago." St. Elmo's Fire will always have a place in my heart for what it represents to my generation, and to the generation that actually came of age during the film's premiere.
The friends include: -Kirby (Emilio Estevez) who is so desperately 'in love' with a past love that he even changes himself to win her heart.-Billy (Rob Lowe) who is talented, unstable and unpredictable -Kevin (Andrew McCarty) who is following a love that is with someone else.-Jules (Demi Moore) who is the self-destructive flirtatious one striving to protect her outer image while she destroys herself internally.-Alec (Judd Nelson) who is climbing the ladders of success and screwing 'nameless' and 'faceless' chicks while still desperate to marry his girlfriend to make his life perfect.-Leslie (Ally Sheedy) is the girlfriend who wants to have a career of her own before settling down for marriage bliss.-Wendy (Mare Winningham) who is the most selfless one, a frustrated virgin who is striving for independence and love.The actors are brilliantly cast as they fit the parts physically (the right age and looks) and deliver sincere performances.
Well if they're reading this then hopefully the latter but as our kids will be born deformed and retarded because of the chemicals sluicing around our reproductive tubing I'm not taking any chances, in fact I'm posting this review as a time capsule so even if Schumacher's people kill everyone who ever saw Batman and Robin, burn all the prints and use an EMP pulse bomb to destroy every computer in the world that ever held user reaction to it, people will at least know about St Elmo's Fire  which sounds like a bad accident and turns out to be just that.If you remember the 1980's then congratulations, you're at least 26 and so a number of years too old to enjoy this frankly baffling bit of Brat Pack, life affirming, existential ejaculate.
It stars the only six people under 30 in America with an equity card during the era, Estevez (the short one with the bad hair cut), Sheedy (pretty in an skewered kind of way), Lowe (life), McCarthy (Mannequin!), Moore (is less) and Nelson (er,).
What's the hurry, you could wait for the place to be sold before she'd perish at those temperatures but in a film where Estevez can kiss his victim and make her love him, thus fulfilling every pervert's fantasy and that victim is the doe eyed Andy McDowell who's about as magnetic as a cup of sawdust, it's all par for the course.Schumacher's made worse of course  Batman and Robin is about as poor as it gets for anyone unless you're Judd Nelson's agent but St Elmo's Fire is the one that doesn't so much offend as make the head itch all-night.
You need to lighten up.I watched the DVD of this the other day with the directors commentary, the budget to make it was low, yet the final result is quite special.There are some great performances in this movie, particularly McCarthy and Lowe, legends.I rate St Elmo's Fire higher than Breakfast Club simply because more happens and the characters are more structured.If you have never seen this movie, I suggest you do, it may not mirror reality these days, but there's a certain magic to this film..
can't live with 'em; can't shoot 'em." Kirby - "Soon as I make it really big, I'm going Fluff-n-Fold." Kevin - "Love is an illusion." Jules - "You were always the couple most likely to couple, and don't you forget it!" Group - "Booga Booga Booga, Ah Ah Ahhh!"I've watched this movie many times since my teens (when it premiered), and I always laugh, cringe, facepalm, stare in wonderment at the screen as to how such nonsense was even filmed.
Although they had each been in several prior films, the 8 main actors were all 20 to 26 years old - Emilio Estevez (22), Rob Lowe (20), Andrew McCarthy (22), Demi Moore (22), Judd Nelson (25), Ally Sheedy (22), Mare Winningham (25), and Andie McDowell (26).
He makes the point that the critics mistook "content for intent," but it's hard to miss the snooty ways the main characters look down on the poor unfortunates around them who aren't as cool as they are, whether it be a sad naked guy wandering a hospital corridor, a gay designer, or Wendy's schlubby suitor."Welfare recipients are getting better looking," says Billy, which would be wrong in anyone's mouth but particularly so from the sculpted lips of Rob Lowe.
Rated R for Language,Drug Use and Some Sexuality I watched St Elmo's Fire yesterday night when it played on TV.The film has an all star 80's cast which feature Judd Nelson,Emilio Estevez,Ally Sheedy(all were in The Breakfast Club),Andrew McCarthy(Less Than Zero,Pretty In Pink) and Demi Moore who is still famous as of today.I preferred the breakfast club because I am still in high school and I guess I can relate to the characters more.Also the breakfast club was fairly funny and this is a drama with a few funny scenes.The film is basically about a group of friends who graduated college and struggle with relationships and life.Its fairly underrated here on IMDb but I really enjoyed this film and if you like 80's films, check this one out..
He looked like a little pigeon strutting the stage.For such an uncontroversial film St Elmo's really stirs up strong feelings and I understand why, people who were of similar age when the film came out are filled with nostalgia; those autumnal hues that clever, faintly classical/preppy/sentimental/plinkplonk-piano musical motif always gets me (forget the awful John Parr nonsense).It pushes all the right buttons on one level.On another level we're asked to live vicariously, for 2 hours, through the lives of the most smug little collective ever to appear in a movie!!
What film did he turn up for because to say his part was extraneous would be surplus to requirements.The actors I loved, the characters I loved to hate but was meant to love and that was the problem-they said nothing to me about my life at the time but now over 20 years later I can share fond memories with types I'd cross the road in order to avoid because we all grow up-hopefully..
There are some problematic points in St. Elmo's Fire...a feminist critique of the film would discover some interesting facts about the desires of the three girls versus those of the four boys...and Rob Lowe's saving of Demi Moore's character could be the worst moment from the Brat Packers.
Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson both following their dreams, and both selling out in order to get them (and their respective employments aren't their only dreams), Allie Sheedy and Mare Winningham trying to find understanding for why they exist, and Rob Lowe's shown inability to grow up, even though he arguably leads the most adult life of the seven...life can't stay as care-free as it was when they are Alpha Omegas, no matter how hard they want it to.The dialogue is trite, and much is unbelievable, but it is the small things that Joel Shumacher does that make this great...the placard on their table that says RESERVED, Rob Lowe's wearing of his letter jacket when life gets tough, Mare Winningham's moral center versus the other heroine's carelessness, and the forced fun that many have together that culminates in the fight at the mansion..
Someone has called this the ultimate Brat Pack movie and while I gladly will accept all nominations for rivals, this will do until someone suggests a better one.St. Elmo's Fire centers on the lives and loves of seven 20 something college graduates from the Georgetown, Maryland suburb of Washington, DC.
The women are an assorted lot as well from hedonistic Demi Moore to virginal Mare Winningham with Ally Sheedy in the middle.We can't forget Emilio Estevez as the law student who works at St. Elmo's bar where they all hang out and Andrew McCarthy the cynical writer who's about to become a victim of what he doesn't believe in, committed love.
I was surprised to find he wasn't behind it, but is is the sort of thing he was making at the time, and none the worse for that.With a little perspective (The Atlantic Ocean) it all seems a little self-absorbed but the themes are familiar to anyone going through the educational mill of a Western-style democracy and coming out the other side realising you're still not actually qualified to do anything.Finding your niche in life is tough, even if you've just graduated from Georgetown University, which I suspect in real life is a top school, like Oxford or Cambridge are here in the UK.The slushy plot is rescued by sharp dialogue which, while a little too witty and knowing, is entertaining all the same.The film's stars feature in several of my top ten 80s films.
This is the definitive 'brat pack' movie of the mid 80s and the vehicle that launched many young acting careers - actors with great on-screen charm and charisma.There is rough road ahead for most people and most of us settle for Thoreau's quiet life of desperation.
In Elmo's Fire all the characters are flawed in their own way: Jules has deep rooted abandonment issues as a child of divorce/remarriage; Kirby Keager is clearly a stalker with mental health issues; Kevin is obsessed with Leslie and has naive expectations about their future (more delusion); Alec Newberry (brilliantly played by Judd Nelson) is an obnoxious, irascible arrogant young man with anger issues who has an exaggerated sense of entitlement and seems to want to control Leslie's life to the point of being chauvinistic and overbearing; Wendy, is way too innocent for her own good and Leslie is quietly deluded (trying to ignore Alec's extra-curricular activities) about Alec and their future together, naively thinking he'll stick around while she gets her career as a young architect together.I remember the first time I watched this movie and it went over my head, I just found too much going on.
Movies that try to be trendy (and I include in this those that succeed) are in ten years time as irrevocably dated as " Birth of a Nation".For evidence see St. Elmo's Fire, a saga of the boring lives of some self-absorbed, over-educated yuppies.But the Love Theme is beautiful, the title song brilliant and Rob Lowe never looked prettier!.
And last but not least, Kevin, who is in love with his best friend's girlfriend and is also a writer.St. Elmo's Fire is a good film and I know that this was one of Joel Schumacher's first films, he did a decent job I think.
Not too many people pay attention to this hard time in a young adult's life, so St. Elmo's Fire is a great way of taking a look at the situation.
The script and direction are second rate, and if not for a very good soundtrack (that included the hits "Man in Motion" and "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire") and an enjoyable cast who have fun making this movie, this one may have been a complete flop.There is nothing really impressive about this teen film (except that huge brat pack cast that included Rob, Emilio, Demi, Ally, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson and Mare Winningham).Tuesday, November 12, 1991 - Video.
Kirby Keger (Emilio Estevez) is a lawyer-in-training who becomes obsessed with an older woman (Andie MacDowell) who is a doctor; Billy Hicks (Rob Lowe) is a father and a husband who can't keep a job and is somewhat of a sex addict; Kevin Dolenz (Andrew McCarthy) is a writer who is secretly in love with one of his best friends; Alec Newbary (Judd Nelson) is a political figure who is also somewhat of a sex addict and tries everything he can to get his girlfriend to marry him; Leslie Hunter (Ally Sheedy) is Alec's girlfriend and is the object of Kevin's affection; Jules Jacoby (Demi Moore) is a cocaine addict who also can't keep a job and lives life in the fast lane; and finally there's Wendy Beamish (Mare Winningham) who is a sweet, down to earth virgin who is in love with Billy.
Rob Lowe is a bad boy who plays the saxophone unrealistically, Mare Willingham is a virgin who doesn't seem attractive enough to warrant his interest, Andrew McCarthy is a guy people think might be gay, but we don't know if he really is or not, and Demi Moore is a stuck up snob who does cocaine.There's also (of course) Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andie McDowell and probably a bunch of others I'm forgetting, but none of their characters make any impression whatsoever.Is this the fault of Schumacher?
St. Elmo's Fire (1985) ** (out of 4) Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham are seven friends who graduate and soon realize that being adults isn't nearly as much fun as they thought.
Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Andie Macdowell, and Emileo Estevez were all great in their roles, even though Emileo's character was a little annoying at times.
The film, starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Mare Winningham.
This movie was like the microcosm of the feeling they had for their life.The goodness of this film is that it so captures this culture well.
**SPOILERS**Story about a bunch of self centered young people-known to the movie going public as the "Brat Pack"- who just don't know what to do with their lives but sit around their favorite hang-out "The St. Elmo's Bar" and get smashed and talk about the raw deal that life, or fate, has given them.What exactly is bugging this bunch of spoiled and overgrown babies anyway?
Some thrive and others can't handle the new responsibilities that come with adulthood.The cast is incredible made of Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, & Andie MacDowell.
One of the better Brat Pack movies, even though the Breakfast Club is good it doesn't have Rob Lowe in it.
Featured are Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham.
Every time I watch this movie, I think both of my own college friends and what it would have been like to be a part of the St. Elmo's Fire group.
Seven Georgetown graduates (Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheddy and Mare Winningham) confront adult problems for the first time in their lives after their first post graduate year.Directed by Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, Tigerland) made an fine coming of age dramatic comedy for the young adults.
ELMO'S FIRE (1985) **1/2 Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, Andie MacDowell, Martin Balsam.