The Breakfast Club (1985): Not only the quintessential 80s teen movie but also the finest teen movie ever

Dear Mr. Geek Show, I accept the fact that I had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was I did wrong. But I think you’re crazy to make me write an essay telling you why I think The Breakfast Club is one of the greatest films ever.

And if you don’t see that, if you see films as you want to see them – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what I found out is that The Breakfast Club is funny, romantic, moving, and thought-provoking.

Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, Mark Cunliffe.

That’s it. That’s my review. So strike up ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ and let me walk home across the football field and have my crowning moment of punching the air in victory before the credits roll.

What? You want more? You really are a Neo-Maxi Zoon Dweebie who raids Barry Manilow’s wardrobe.

Released by the Criterion Collection this week and written and directed by the late, great John Hughes, The Breakfast Club is a high school chamber piece that sees five disparate characters – Brian, “a brain” (Anthony Michael Hall), Andrew, “an athlete” (Emilio Estevez), Allison, “a basket case” (Ally Sheedy), Claire, “a princess” (Molly Ringwald) and Bender, “a criminal” (Judd Nelson) – brought together for Saturday detention by the Vice Principal, Mr Vernon (Paul Gleason). Forced together, the protagonists initially play up to their stereotypes via posturing and petty squabbling, sowing the division that makes up high school social constructs. But slowly, over the passage of time, their personas and inhibitions are shed to reveal the true identities that lie beneath the surface along with the angst and inarticulation, the hopes and the fears of modern youth.

For me, The Breakfast Club is the apex of John Hughes’ work. As a result, it could be argued that it is not only the quintessential 80s teen movie but also the finest teen movie ever. It’s a film I have dearly loved ever since I first clapped eyes on it in the 1990s as a teenager myself and, as such, it’s a little difficult to approach it impartially, but I am going to try and I am going to look at some of the things that don’t work and some of Hughes’ poor judgement and his worst tendencies, just so this isn’t some gushing love-in of a read.

In only his second time in the director’s chair, cannily operating with a modest $1m budget and a single-location shoot with the action largely taking place in the library setting, Hughes rightly took his place as ‘the bard of American youth’. The Breakfast Club is the movie that neatly divided his filmmaking style into two separate camps; soulful and empathic teen films like this one, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful, and those movies that traded on his early work as a contributor to National Lampoon magazine which he personally called his “dopey-ass comedies”, films like the successful National Lampoon’s Vacation series and almost copy-cat lesser titles such as The Great Outdoors. A strain of this comedy was later channelled into his screenplays for child-focused films that favoured cutesie or slapstick, knockabout humour such as the incredibly successful Home Alone, Beethoven, Dennis the Menace and Baby’s Day Out. In terms of teen movies, Hughes’ sophomoric The Breakfast Club is leaps and bounds better than his first directorial effort, 1984’s Sixteen Candles, a movie that saw the stars align to bring Hughes in contact with his muse Molly Ringwald (Anthony Michael Hall appears too, along with John Kapelos who plays Carl the janitor here) but also sees the filmmaker explore teenage strife with ill-advised examples of his ‘dopey-ass’ sense of humour. Viewed today, Sixteen Candles is not without merit, but it is also deeply offensive in terms of racism and sexism. The central problem with Sixteen Candles is that Hughes is arguably wearing his National Lampoon‘s writer’s cap, which means that he isn’t always taking teenagers as seriously as they would take themselves. In choosing to open The Breakfast Club with a caption of David Bowie’s lyric “And these children that you spit on…” from Changes (apparently on the recommendation of Ally Sheedy) Hughes sets out his very own mission statement that says he’s not about to make the same mistake here.

Nevertheless, as a movie, The Breakfast Club is a significant example of him learning on the job as he purposefully sheds his initial instincts towards less sophisticated humour in favour of real empathy, insight and understanding. This realisation often occurred very late in the day, as illustrated in the decision to fire Rick Moranis, who had originally been cast as Carl the janitor and opted to play the role with a thick beard and an equally thick Russian accent. With Moranis off the picture, Hughes drops the broad comedy, casts John Kapelos as Carl and makes yet another good point about growing up – eagle-eyed viewers will spot that Carl is pictured in the ‘Student Hall of Fame’ during the opening montage as ‘Man of the Year’; now here he is pushing a broom down the very school corridors he once walked tall in. Is it any wonder our juvenile protagonists fear growing up and losing something of themselves? As Sheedy’s Allison so succinctly puts it “When you grow up your heart dies”. Further examples of Hughes’ learning can be found in the story of how, during rehearsals in Chicago, Sheedy, Ringwald and producer Michelle Manning objected and successfully lobbied for the removal of one scene on the grounds of sexism and misogyny. The contentious scene in question would have depicted the students using a peephole into the women’s locker room to spy on their busty, disrobed P.E. teacher. I think you’ll agree this Porky’s style humour would have jarred considerably with the overall tone that The Breakfast Club otherwise achieves. Equally, I think you’ll agree that there’s a delicious irony in the context of this film that can be found in two of the young cast members addressing the thirty-something Hughes’ need to be more mature behind the scenes.

The Breakfast Club is not without its imperfections though. Molly Ringwald has in recent years acknowledged a degree of misogyny that permeates the relationship between her character Claire and Judd Nelson’s Bender; “Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic’, and mocking her as ‘Queenie’. It’s a rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively towards him, and, in a pivotal scene near the end, she predicts that at school on Monday morning, even though the group has bonded, things will return, socially to the status quo. He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end”. Ringwald is absolutely right of course to express concern at the dangerous mixed messages the film sends out to its young audience and it’s a relationship, or romance, that simply would not fly for post #MeToo audiences. Yet there’s more going on in their interactions than the superficial abuse and Ringwald does herself in particular a disservice as a performer not to acknowledge this because she makes it subtly apparent to the audience at all times. Right from the off it seems clear that Claire is interested in Bender; not just romantically as their storyline inevitably develops, but genuinely interested in him as a person. Yes, you could level the accusation that this is a ‘Richie’ curious to see how the other half lives, but it’s telling to note that she instinctively believes the reveal about his abusive home life whilst Emilio Estevez’s Andrew dismisses it immediately out of hand as a falsehood to bolster Bender’s troubled, tough guy image. Hughes ensures that Claire is therefore depicted with a greater degree of empathy than any of the adults that struggle to control or understand Bender, most notably the monstrous Vernon whose instincts are to challenge the youth physically whenever his authoritarianism fails.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Bender does behave appallingly towards Claire. Even in the film’s later stages, the post-pot round circle chat that Ringwald alludes to in her comment about her predicting the status quo will reassert itself on Monday, Bender cannot help but shame her following a demonstration of her lipstick trick. The fact that prior to this he has repeatedly sexualised her and prodded and probed her about her sex life (or lack thereof) shows how contrary and hypocritical he is, and does not bode well for any future relationship as surely Claire would never know where she stood. If we are to try and sympathise with Bender here, it could be argued that he reveals this more prudish side of his character as a direct result of his own barriers coming down during this seminal group heart to heart, that he feels he has seen the real Claire and valued her purity, only for the party trick to somehow sully her. Nevertheless, it’s a dick move and comes straight from the ‘Women are either Madonnas or Whores’ playbook of male misogynists.

There’s an argument that Bender is displaying a self-preservation technique, that mindful of Claire’s prediction for Monday, he can’t afford to fall hard for her. They’re both canny enough to know that their relationship would freak her parents out after all, which is the ultimate revenge a disgruntled adolescent can deliver to them. The Breakfast Club shows a connection can be made across class (and I’m talking social class here, not Math or Geography) but Hughes doesn’t sugarcoat it for audiences with the less credible suggestion that the connection will continue (and, as such, the title track Don’t You (Forget About Me) becomes a heartfelt plea for remembrance if a future is impossible). Claire thinks nothing of giving Bender one of her delicate diamond studs (in all likelihood as a memento of the connection they made, rather than a testament to their undying love), but doesn’t this gesture simply confirm the distance between the pair as well as Bender’s earlier taunts that these were likely to be not something she had to work for, but were in fact a Christmas present from daddy; a stinging contrast to the carton of cigarettes he received from his violent old man that year.

Bender may come from a difficult, abusive background that has taught him to hurt others before they can hurt you, he may have a significant chip on his shoulder regarding social class, and he may even have undiagnosed ADHD that masks his innate intelligence (the signs are there), but the sympathy we feel for his issues (skilfully invoked by Nelson’s passionate, breakout performance) only goes so far before we must acknowledge that he has to work to improve on some stuff himself. That said, it would be unfair not to point out that he is arguably the character who changes the most across the film. He arrives in the morning anti-social and aggressive and leaves that afternoon the anti-hero, having learnt to engage with his sensitive side and to sacrifice himself for others. You punch that air, Bender. You punch it hard.

For all the flaws in the depiction of Claire and Bender’s romance, it is still infinitely better than the unconvincing way in which Hughes chooses to handle the one between Andrew and Allison. There’s just no denying that The Breakfast Club does Allison dirty. Like Bender, I suspect Allison is neuro-divergent. Her erratic character and non-verbal behaviour, her remarkable artistic talent, her peculiar, deeply sugary diet and her ability to memorise information she has only glanced at, to say nothing of her emotional intelligence (she gets to summarise the film’s message about how they struggle to be understood by adults and her ability to get the group to reveal stuff about themselves through her daring, ‘nympho’ fabrications) all point towards a diagnosis of autism or even Asperger’s. When considered, this makes her fate in the cliched romantic teen movie ‘the makeover’ all the more intolerable. Allison is not an ugly duckling, and Hughes is wrong to treat her as such. The idea that she ‘wins’ Andrew’s sudden affection (unlike Claire and Bender, it literally comes from nowhere) because Claire removes her black eyeliner and applies pink blusher and hairband taps into the misogynistic idea that teenage girls have to conform to a standard idea of ‘pretty’ to be accepted sends out a message as dangerous to its young audience as the one inherent in Bender’s attitude towards Claire. This ‘Change for Men’ message undoes the work going on elsewhere regarding Bender undergoing the greatest character development.

Ultimately, spotting flaws and issues with a movie doesn’t detract from your appreciation or enjoyment of said movie. Most of the flaws and issues I raise here stem from watching the film with ‘2023 eyes’, so what am I saying, that The Breakfast Club is a little bit dated in some respects? Well of course it is, it’s a thirty-eight-year-old movie. You can’t expect it to remain fresh after so long. That said, the overall message of teenage angst, of a fear of losing their identity like they believe their parents to have done, whilst at the same time acknowledging the problematic nature these very identities have in terms of affording them the opportunity to engage with students outside of their cliques or social status, remains a salient and compelling one. There’s an argument to be had that, if Hughes chose to open up the film to afford us a closer look at Vernon or Carl or any of the kid’s parents, we may see that they are unnecessarily anxious or unfair, but that’s not what John Hughes wanted to pursue. He wanted to side with the children the adults ‘spit on as they try to change their worlds’. He wanted to deliver a film from their perspective so it could speak to them, and I think (flaws aside) he manages to do that.

Being a Criterion release, The Breakfast Club is an attractive package that comes with plenty of extras. There’s a 2008 audio commentary from Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson, new interviews with Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy and a video essay of Hughes’ production notes read by Nelson. A 2008 documentary reunites cast and crew, whilst there are several archival interviews, promotion spots and a trailer. Most mouth-watering of all however is the inclusion of fifty minutes of previously unseen deleted and extended scenes from Hughes’ original 150-minute cut of the movie.

Mark’s Archive: The Breakfast Club (1985)