We all have our own friends and cliques. We like our friends (usually), but when it comes to the rest of the student body, we have trouble coming to terms with the fact that they are teens like ourselves with the same problems and fears because they don't look, dress, or talk like us. This is how John, Brian, Andrew, Allison, and Claire felt towards one another on a blustery Saturday in detention.
The Breakfast Club (1985), showed what it would be like when five different stereotypes are brought together on a Saturday for detention. The film stars Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Molly Ringwald. The film begins with each student arriving to the high school. Claire (Molly Ringwald) is shown talking to her father, saying “I can’t believe you can’t get me out of this” to her father. You come to discover that she is a pristine, rich brat. Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is a wrestler who is being bullied by his father. Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) is a brain who is being yelled at by his mother to figure out a way to study while in detention. John (Judd Nelson) walks out in front of a car in motion wearing a long gray trench coat. And last, but not least, Allison (Ally Sheedy) gets out of the backseat of her parents’ car, approaches the passenger’s side door, as if to talk, at which point her parent drives away.
When in the library (where detention is being held) the students are instructed to write an essay saying who they think they are. Once he has left, John, the criminal of the group, begins misbehaving, to say the least. Andrew and Claire, being popular, immediately side against John, saying that he doesn’t belong anywhere and that if he were to disappear, no one would even notice. Brian interrupts several times, either to correct someone or to tell something about himself that pertains to the situation. Allison sits at the back table, silent.
At first, you think that five different stereotypes sitting in one room together will be disastrous, but you soon find out otherwise. They begin to realize that each of their sets of parents is abusive. They also come to realize that they all have things about their lives that they wish they could change.
Over all, The Breakfast Club deserves four and a half stars. It is a fantastic story line, and the acting is great, too. I find that this is a very original idea, being that it is one of the first stories to have an integration of different social cliques.
I would not recommend this movie for anyone under the age of twelve, for there are many uses of vulgar swear words, as well as a few allusions to sex.