Dir. John Hughes, US, 1985, 97 mins
Cast: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Paul Gleason, John Kapelos
“Saturday 24th March, 1984.” With the proclamation of this date, anchoring this day to a very specific time, “a brain (Hall), an athlete (Estevez), a princess (Ringwald), a basket case (Sheedy) and a criminal (Nelson)” all take their places for a day’s detention at Shermer High School. Most of the parents drop-off their wayward offspring, their chattering comments revealing a little about the background they are each from. Only Bender, ‘the criminal’, arrives unescorted.
They shuffle into the library, the seats they take reflective of their social standing within the school. ‘Princess’ Clare takes up a place at the front; ‘athlete’ Andrew recognises her as a fellow ‘popular’ person and asks if he can sit next to her, her agreement acknowledging the same. ‘brain’ Brian sits behind them, not quite a popular person but one which society deems as normal but rather uncool. He’s soon commanded to move back a seat by the aggressive Bender, who shows his contempt for his detention by sitting with his feet sprawled across an adjacent chair. Finally, ‘basket case’ Allison scuttles in and takes her rightful place way at the back of the class.
They’re under the watchful eye of Principal Vernon (Gleason), who is already on first name terms with Bender and, he tells them, they have eight hours in which to write an essay, of not less than 1,000 words, as to who they think they are.
He leaves to spend his day doing inane things in his office down the hall, and the students are left to ruminate in silence. This is broken, as one might expect, by Bender. He’s clearly been here many times before and has to pass the day somehow. It’s his antagonistic demeanor that moves the plot, serving as it does as a catalyst to communication. At first, the group polarises against him but then unite against the common foe. When Bender shuts the door, Vernon demands to know who did it. ‘I think the screws fell out’ says Bender, with mock helpfulness. ‘Did you steal the screws?’ Vernon bellows, to which Clare pipes up: ‘Excuse me, Mr Vernon, but who would want to steal a screw?’ Already, the unremitting infallibility of an adult is being shown to be fragile, and this is one of the steps necessary for the assembled youngsters to assert their own identities.
Bender is old beyond his years and the group is collectively repelled and drawn by him. His stance in them all leaving the classroom whilst Vernon isn’t looking goes unquestioned. “Does it feel good doing something bad?” He asks. However, when things go wrong and it looks like they’re going to be caught, it’s Bender who says “No, only me” and runs amok, luring Vernon after him while the others return to the safety of the library. Bender is a bad boy but here he demonstrates a strong sense of loyalty and both acknowledges and takes responsibility for his actions, hardly analogous with this image. Bender has learned to question, from necessity from the harshness of his life, the authority of adults. He already is his own person, but it’s a lesson that clashes with the ethos of schooling. Then again, why does he bother to turn up to detention if he’s so rebellious? Does the little boy in him still crave the comfort of some form of just discipline?
In fact, all are there, we discover, because of the sins of the parent. As Bender tantalisingly plays devil’s advocate, his persistent bating of pretty in pink Clare in particular being something akin to a young Hannibal Lector, each youth is in turn forced to confront some painful home truths about and how they see themselves. Clare is there because she put her learned priorities first and skipped class to go shopping; Bender’s father beats him regularly and gives him a pack of cigarettes for Christmas. Andrew taped up a smaller boy’s testicles, purely to impress his own father who equates strength with physical strength. “All I could think of” he says “was his humiliation in having to tell his father.” “Your old man and my old man should go bowling” says Bender. Brian, meanwhile, is an A-grade student who failed shop. “I look in at myself and I don’t like myself.” He’s under pressure from his parents to maintain his average, culminating with him wanting to cut loose and having a gun in his locker which accidentally went off.
Meanwhile Vernon, being caught rummaging through confidential files (and thereby posited as a bad example of an adult and proof that they are fallible) is, after being blackmailed by him for fifty bucks in order to keep his mouth shut, now sitting discussing life with Carl, the janitor (Kapelos). “Each year they get more arrogant” he tells him, to which Carl replies: “They haven’t changed – you have. If you were 16, what would you think of you?”
And what of Allison? Apart from the occasional eruptive monosyllable which elicits ‘shut up!’ from an incredulous Clare, and flaking her dandruff over a sketch she’s made, she’s remained entrenched in the background, a strange anonymous figure. She responds first to Andrew as they fetch drinks from the cafeteria for lunch, and then proudly places herself at the centre of attention by telling all Brian’s personal details. “I stole your wallet” she announces proudly then asks if they want to see what’s in her bag which she then unceremoniously dumps the contents of all over the sofa. Intrigued, Andrew says she must really want to run away or have people think that she wants to. He goes to her and asks if it’s real bad with her parents. “What they do to you?” “They ignore me”. He nods. “Yeah” is the understanding reply.
Following some marijuana-enhanced group soul-searching, and more Clare-bating, this time by all the group, Brian asks what will happen on Monday when they all go back to school – will they still be friends? “Honestly?” Says Clare, “I don’t think so”. The group realises that they each have their own codes and pressures as to how to behave and be seen with within their own social groupings. All except, poignantly, Brian who says he would never do that, blot out the others existence. More poignantly, it is Brian who is democratically elected to write a communal essay for Mr Vernon, a task he’s more than willing to do.
Having worked through their demons together and fully bonded, Clare now takes Ally under her wing, doing what she does best and proving that, on a personal level, she is prepared to accept and share with her that most sacred of feminine rituals: she gives her a makeover. Allison symbolically steps out in a white dress and hair swept from her newly painted face, both revealing herself and presenting a new persona. Both Brian and Andrew are amazed at the transformation. Clare, meanwhile, goes in search of Bender, intent on resolving the sexual tension that has buzzed between them.
At the end of the day, they leave the building as a group, going back to their individual lives. Andrew and Allison share an awkward kiss, and she takes the badge from his letterman jacket as a reminder, while the kiss between Bender and Clare is more tender. There’s such a beautiful story here if only things were different. She wraps his hand gently around one of the diamond stud earrings he’d earlier mocked and clasps his hands around it. As she leaves, he puts it on and walks off. Each of the parting gifts is a representation of what stands between the impossible couples, a trophy that each have won – a sort of symbolic passing on of power, one half of each ‘couple’ needing to give what the other needs to receive, eradicating a lack. They have all seen past the image and accept each other for the people they are. And the essay? Brian’s voice over says “we think you’re crazy making us write an essay on who we think we are – you see us as you want to see us – a brain, an athlete, a princess, a basket case and a criminal…” when, in fact, they are each all of these people.
Together they know that their paths are unlikely to cross again but they have shared something that has made them face themselves. There’s a calm acceptance that they will continue to conform to the image that people see them as but they now know that they do so from choice and that there is more to them as people, and to others too. It’s not the most happiest of endings but it is a satisfying and honest one, and which exemplifies the moral of the tale.
Bender punches the air as he walks away, cueing the theme song: ‘Don’t You (forget about me)…’
Jean Lynch
The Breakfast Club is released on UK Region 2 DVD as part of Universal’s BRAT PACK COLLECTION retailing at £15.99
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