Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy
Have I Seen It Before: Sure.
Did I Like It: Question before we go any further. How did fully half of <The Breakfast Club (1985)> go from detention to that disaffected first year after college in less than six months? Isn’t that the biggest special effect asking us to leap from our logic in 1985?
If I’m asking those kinds of questions about the movie, I couldn’t have along for the ride, free of any self-consciousness. The reputation of the film is one of general revulsion, countered only by the fact that it appealed and continues to appeal to a certain subset of the population who were that terrible in 1985. As an infant at the time, I was probably terrible, but at least I had an excuse.
I think you would be hard pressed to find a review that isn’t fixated on just how terrible all of the characters. And that’s because they are. Well, everyone except Wendy (Mare Winningham), about whom I spend the entire runtime wondering why she was hanging out with these people. It celebrates their worst impulse not only for far longer than any sane film would have, but as a central, load-bearing element of the entire film’s rationale for existing in the first place.
Several of them ought to be arrested*. Most of them probably ought to not have jobs. I can’t imagine any of them adding value to the universe by marrying and having kids.
You might think I’ve become an old fuddy duddy (or as the movie would have you believe: interested in a quiet place for brunch). You might think I have some unresolved issues with the films of Joel Schumacher. <The Flash (2023)> kinda proved that much, so I’ll cede that point, if nothing else.
Here’s where the problem lies in the film. Much of it rings unnervingly true, making the film all the more frustrating. Have I worked in a job in social services where—if the film had bothered to stay a moment longer in the scene—it would have become the single most preposterous series of events ever captured on film? Maybe… Did I spend any sustained moment of my twenties with a particular opinion about Billy Joel’s The Stranger**? I mean, sure. Didn’t we all? Was I the President of my college’s Young Democrats, only to slowly realize that if I were to have any kind of future in politics, I was really going to have to switch sides? Listen: at least I decided to get out of the game all together. Did I ever (read: usually) try to weird my affection for and knowledge of the films of Woody Allen as my opening line with women?
Damn it, Schumacher. I didn’t come to the movies to get called out like that.
*They are all male, in case you were wondering, and I’m mostly thinking about Kirbo (Estevez), before who you think I’m thinking of, although he should spend some time in a cell, too. Incidentally, I also don’t think there is any way Kirbo ended up successfully finishing a year of law school, to say nothing of becoming a lawyer. Don’t ask me how I know.
**I still don’t quite know what Alec (Judd Nelson) was on about in that scene. If you can explain it to me, please reach out to me on any still-functioning social media platform.