John Hughes brings teen angst tolife
Universal Picture's 1985 poster
The 1980s have the rather dubious distinction of being the era of many popular culture elements wed rather forget: hair metal bands, gratuitously grotesque slasher movies, Steven Seagal and so on.
But there are a few diamonds hidden in the rough, and in 1980s Hollywood, John Hughes was responsible for several cinematic gems that stand out from the likes of Rocky IV, Friday the 13th and Red Dawn. Hughes, who died on Aug. 6 from a heart attack, specialized in teen movies with heart, and arguably the best of these is his 1985 film, The Breakfast Club.
The distinguishing feature of The Breakfast Club and other Hughes films such as Sixteen Candles and Ferris Buellers Day Off is their high-quality writing. All of the primary characters in Hughes work are dynamic, complex characters. There are no caricatures or stereotypes, at least when it comes to the teens with the starring roles. A large part of what makes The Breakfast Club work is that it takes the common high school clichs we all remember and peels them back to reveal the inner workings and anxiety of adolescents.
The Breakfast Club starts with five high school students showing up at the library on a Saturday morning for an all-day detention session. Represented are all of the cliques found at any high school: the jock, the social queen, the troublemaker, the nerd and the outcast. They are played by (respectively) Emilio The Mighty Duck Man Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall and Ally Sheedy. They are watched over by their gleefully sadistic principal played by Paul Gleason, who looks suspiciously like Principal Skinner of The Simpsons fame.
When the classmates first arrive, Hughes quickly establishes their defining characteristics to set up the expectation of how these characters will interact. Estevez is worried about an upcoming wrestling match, Ringwald is wearing designer earrings and Nelson makes crude remarks about Hall being a virgin. While none of the characters can stand each other at first, they are forced to keep talking just to find a way to pass the time. And so begins a slow process whereby the group opens up and realizes they all share the same anxieties, problems and issues.
In The Breakfast Club, all of the characters express contempt for how their parents treat them. They face athletic and academic pressure, abuse or an outright lack of interest at home and wonder if theyre going to end up like their parents, a fate almost too horrible to comprehend. Nelson remarks at one point that anyone who says they get along with their parents is a liar.
By the end of the movie, all of “The Breakfast Club” members have been fleshed out to varying degrees and are no longer one-word labels. Some fare better than others, but in the process of sharing their lives with each other, Hughes reveals the universal angst teenagers go through to the audience. Its this quality that makes The Breakfast Club unique among teen movies. It isnt perfect, but its presentation of real characters that anyone can relate to in a compelling way makes it worth the time to go back and revisit.
Check out the original trailer for “The Breakfast Club” here.
Contact CU Independent Entertainment Editor Rob Ryan at rryan@colorado.edu.
