The Breakfast Club (1985): Favourite Films Series

The Breakfast Club (1985): Favourite Films Series

 

“…And these children

that you spit on

as they try to change their worlds

are immune to your consultations.

They’re quite aware

of what they’re going through…”

 

-David Bowie

 

So begins The Breakfast Club, with this apt quote following some modest opening titles accompanied by the song “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds. The quote then explodes like a rock thrown through a window and we see some establishing shots of Shermer High School, which makes it look and feel like a 100 % authentic school. A character we are about to meet, Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), narrates over these shots, reading what we eventually find out is an essay he wrote later that Saturday afternoon in detention—only, it’s not quite the same essay he ends up writing. If you watch carefully, a few of those shots are set ups for things we learn about the titular group of students stuck there. Only one of them is a regular at Saturday detentions, but all of them were destined that day to forge new relationships and learn as much about themselves as they would about each other.

Some movies can get away with having weaker actors cast in smaller roles and still be great, but a movie like this could not have done that. Casting was everything, and the cast has no weak link. At the beginning Brian (the nerdy, socially awkward one) is sort of the main character because he’s the first voice we hear, but he isn’t even the first character we see on screen. The intros begin with popular, goody-two-shoes Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), then Brian, then athletic Andrew Clark (Emilio Esteves), and finally a one-two of rough-around-the-edges trouble maker John Bender (Judd Nelson) and enigmatic Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy). Shortly after, we meet loathsome Richard “Dick” Vernon (Paul Gleason), a vice principal with a bad attitude towards education. Finally, we can’t forget John Kapelos as Carl the Janitor, who makes three memorable appearances throughout the day, and is the only other prominent adult aside from Vernon. There is no one main character, exactly, which is reflected in the film’s iconic poster.

The Breakfast Club was a relatively simple production, with a one million dollar budget, a runtime just over ninety minutes, and only six principal actors. While it went on to be a box office success and cemented writer/director John Hughes as one of the greatest filmmakers to bring authentic stories about believable teenagers to the big screen, it has since become a defining 80’s film, and is one of my favourite high school movies of all-time. I didn’t see it until a few years after I had seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), and it was many more years after my first time seeing it (when I myself was in high school) that I learned John Hughes shot both movies back-to-back, and while they have some obvious similarities, The Breakfast Club is a favourite film of mine for different reasons from why Ferris Bueller is also one of my favourites. In a way, The Breakfast Club is the antithesis of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The entire premise is about a day of punishment that leads to character growth and self-discovery, instead of a day of fun that, well…doesn’t—for the main character, anyway.

Another way it’s distinctly different is how focused it is on developing a few characters in one setting in a realistic manner. Ferris Bueller is fun because it’s ultimately a fantasy story—there’s no way Ferris could have gotten away with his elaborate day off, but it’s an escape from reality. The Breakfast Club holds up a magnifying glass to reality. There are a couple fantasy moments, though, to be sure. How does Bender fall through the high ceiling and walk away completely uninjured? How does Andrew scream so loud that he shatters the glass window in the door? How do they all get away with cranking music and dancing in the montage at the end without getting caught? These are moments you have to just embrace, and they’re meant to be fun, anyway, because even though this is the most serious and dramatic of the unofficial trilogy of John Hughes’ mid-80’s teen movies, it’s still a comedy with many laugh-out-loud moments.

I like his previous movie, Sixteen Candles (1984). It has some great characters, funny dialogue, and many memorable moments. But, it just fundamentally does not hold up in the same way as The Breakfast Club. Sixteen Candles feels even more of the 80’s (perhaps because of some ways it hasn’t aged well) than Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller, and is less focused than either of them, but it was still a great directorial debut for Hughes. Breakfast Club was supposed to be his directorial debut, but it ended up being Sixteen Candles; Breakfast Club was a simpler production by the nature of its single location and smaller cast. I think more than anything (even more than casting) it came down to his screenplay for The Breakfast Club just being better and therefore it was a better movie. The dialogue is so smart, and delivered in such a real way by every actor. It’s less conventional than either Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller, and really cuts to the core of teen angst in a way I don’t think had been done before.

If I were to pick one favourite scene, it would be the long one toward the end when all four of them are sitting around on the floor, and it begins with Claire being pressured to reveal she’s a virgin. Then it transitions to a lengthy explanation for why Andrew is in detention, with that long uninterrupted take moving from right to left as he monologues. It starts off funny, then steadily gets more serious. We get some more dialogue among them all, some arguing, the question of whether or not they will all still be friends on Monday (having never interacted prior to that day), and then Brian’s explanation for his detention, which ends in a funny way to let out some of the tension built up over the extended, continuous conversation. Then, it ends with the best/funniest explanation of them all: Allison came to detention that morning because…she just, did. She had nothing better to do!

I’m still amazed when I watch that scene to know it was largely improvised, with the actors only given outlines of what their characters had done to end up there and then being allowed to make the dialogue work as they saw fit. It’s the emotional climax of the film and puts all of them into perspective for one another, and puts everything we know about them up to that point into a new perspective, as well. Even though I love the movie from beginning to end, I do have a least favourite aspect: how Andrew crushes on Allison only after Claire gives her a makeover (which she did need, let’s be honest). I could have done without the two of them briefly hooking up at the end; it feels a little more forced and cliché than Claire and Bender hooking up. The latter two characters could have been the only ones to do so and it would have still been satisfactory, but I guess it made for a good parallel between the two pairs of characters in the lead up to the conclusion.  

To finish off, let me circle back around to that opening song, because it plays again at the very end and will make you want to throw your fist up to the sky just like John Bender in the final shot as it fades and the credits roll. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is inseparable from this film, to me. It is one of the most iconic pairings of a popular song and a popular movie. And, the final narration from Brian is his final essay, which he collectively wrote for the whole group and left for Mr. Vernon to read. It remains largely the same as what he said in the beginning, but what they found out was each of them, in their own way, was “a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” (All spoken by each respective character). Then, one of the best final lines in any movie: “Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.” It gives me chills, it makes me go “yes!” and it really makes me feel something—which is ultimately why I always come back to it as an all-time favourite film.