"Breakfast Club" 1985

“Breakfast Club”

This movie is iconic. It is such a part of the eighties for me. John Hughes created the real teen movie. These were kids that looked real and acted real and had flaws and emotions. I don’t think there is a person that can’t relate to one or more of the characters in this movie.

I personally related to Alison, the basket case. I don’t think I was a basket case in a mental sense. I was incredibly shy and my sophomore year I wore a flannel shirt every day. The same flannel shirt.

Have I ever mentioned that I didn’t date a lot in high school?

If I had been born five years later my flannel phase would have been hip and grunge and I would have listened to Nirvana. Instead during the time of designer jeans and Izod polos, I was just weird.

I would look at the girls like Claire. They seemed to have some secret that they weren’t sharing. Their clothes all matched. They knew how to feather their hair and apply pink lip gloss. I see their adult counterparts today. Those women that seem so put together while I have some stain on my shirt and my hair has flipped in the wind and my glasses look like I used them as an eating utensil.

They were so lithe and graceful. I felt like someone had given me a grown up suit to wear and it didn’t quite fit. I had friends. In fact the few friends I had in high school are still my friends. But I never felt like I belonged. Everything was bright neon colors and I was in brown flannel. I would have sat in the back of the room like Alison not making a sound and eating odd sandwiches.

This movie presented the idea that those perfect looking people, the stars of high school might have real emotions and problems. This was incredible to me. Even the stoner was really like an amateur therapist bring a group together by their common goals.

I always imagined Bender doing his thing every week with a new cross section of students.

I’m sad that John Hughes died. I read somewhere that he’d wanted to reunite these characters every ten years or so. But he had a falling out with Molly Ringwold. It would have been interesting to see where they went. John Hughes captured the voice of the eighties teenager. It still astounds me that this is the same man that wrote “Vacation” and the “Home Alone” movies.

This movie has been parodied countless times. If you see any of the stars, no matter what they’ve done since, they are those kids from “The Breakfast Club”. This movie is still touching and funny.

It is simply a great movie.

Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete...
Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case...
Claire Standish: ...a princess...
John Bender: ...and a criminal...
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.