THE BREAKFAST CLUB (John Hughes, Universal, 1985) is quite simply the best teenage/high school film ever, besting even REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Nicholas Ray, Warner Bros., 1955). For me this claim is staked solely in the complete and entirely accurate representation of all cliques within high school life. Whereas REBEL covers a smaller segment, TBC covers them all. As the five teenage characters narrate at the films end; the brain, the jock, the princess, the freak and the criminal truly do represent the primary categories within high school life. And Hughes captures each clique magnificently with his casting of each character.
Each character is cast very well, and their corresponding performances are all good. Brian (the brain, Anthony Michael Hall) is excellent as he loses it to the group over his failed shop experiment and even more so as he realizes these new found friendships will not be there come Monday. Allison (the freak, Ally Sheedy) is memorable for not saying much and letting her actions speak for her. Can your teeth not hurt as she eats a pixie dust/captain crunch sandwich? Something we all would have loved to have done as a child?
And then there is Claire (the princess, Molly Ringwald). Totally and completely a bitch, who didn't have the awesome chance to listen to someone similar rave about her popularity? Or Andy (the jock, Emilio Estevez) as he talks about his offense and actually breaks down? But of the kids this film belongs to John Bender (the criminal, Judd Nelson). Nelson gives the performance of his career as the troubled Bender, coping with a destructive home life, a high school life that is going nowhere all while being a kid that probably has no idea who he is. A great performance is turned in by Nelson, hitting all the facets of his character perfectly.
The film's narrative has some holes that must be explained. Like why does Vernon (Paul Gleason performing intensely) stop checking on the students in lieu of drinking with Karl (John Kapelos)? Or, as Andy screams breaking the glass in the library, why is there no repercussions to this? So yes there are some serious holes in the films narrative, but the deeper journey it's characters undertake and it's uniquely comical moments more than make up for it. And the films theme song, the ultimately eighties song "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds is absolutely brilliant and totally identifiable to the film. One cannot be thought of without the other. Great film.
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