The Breakfast Club
This was a terrible movie. I thought I loved everything '80s. Actually, I take that back because teased hair and legwarmers are atrocious. But I love '80s music and I like watching Glenn Close act in really juicy roles (like Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons). I haven't watched a John Hughes movie since Jamie's 16th birthday party where we all had to dress '80s (but no one did). I don't really remember Uncle Buck or Sixteen Candles, but I remember liking Molly Ringwald. Or maybe I just liked the concept of Molly Ringwald. I wanted to like her because she was '80s and I wanted to like all things '80s.
But the fact of the matter is that I do not like The Breakfast Club. It was ill-conceived and poorly executed. All the characters started out different enough and yet by the end realized they were all the same. The part that bugged me the most was that the "basketcase" (which obviously was my favorite character) got a makeover by the "princess" and nabbed the "athlete" by the end of the movie. I am not exactly sure what message this movie was trying to send out, but it seems to me that it is saying we must all give up our quirks in order to make it through high school. The movie throws around heated arguments regarding cliques, diversity, and the high school pecking order, but every glimpse of some social revelation is negated by some absurd shenannigan that is completely out of context. In fact, that is putting it nicely because in order for something to be out of context, it had to fit in at some point and yet The Breakfast Club feels like it was edited by a chainsaw. Each time the characters begin to make progress, they devolve into lunacy by dancing ridiculously atop the library desks or smoking pot in the stacks somewhere.
I think what is worse about The Breakfast Club is not even the paucity in filmmaking. Rather, it is the realization that if high school really was like that at Parkville, I was completely oblivious. I had a great time in high school and it was partially because everyone liked me and I never felt like I belonged to a clique. Oftentimes it was (still is?) hard because several of my friends tend to dislike each other and things would be so much easier if I could just hang out with more than one person at a time. Especially now that I live at least 40 minutes away from anyone I would call a friend, I seem to be doing a whole lot of driving which is not as easy as it sounds. But I digress. If Parkville really was like the way The Breakfast Club would have me believe, I would have hated high school. In fact, it is for this reason that I refuse to go to the five year reunion and may not even go to the ten year reunion (of course, by that time I'll be starting my 3rd year of med school). I have such fond memories of high school and do not want to ruin them by seeing all my after-the-fact suspicions confirmed. As shoddy and unrealistic (can five sixteen-year-olds really have catharses in one Saturday?) as Hughes' writing was, it made me finally understand why so many people hated high school.
But the fact of the matter is that I do not like The Breakfast Club. It was ill-conceived and poorly executed. All the characters started out different enough and yet by the end realized they were all the same. The part that bugged me the most was that the "basketcase" (which obviously was my favorite character) got a makeover by the "princess" and nabbed the "athlete" by the end of the movie. I am not exactly sure what message this movie was trying to send out, but it seems to me that it is saying we must all give up our quirks in order to make it through high school. The movie throws around heated arguments regarding cliques, diversity, and the high school pecking order, but every glimpse of some social revelation is negated by some absurd shenannigan that is completely out of context. In fact, that is putting it nicely because in order for something to be out of context, it had to fit in at some point and yet The Breakfast Club feels like it was edited by a chainsaw. Each time the characters begin to make progress, they devolve into lunacy by dancing ridiculously atop the library desks or smoking pot in the stacks somewhere.
I think what is worse about The Breakfast Club is not even the paucity in filmmaking. Rather, it is the realization that if high school really was like that at Parkville, I was completely oblivious. I had a great time in high school and it was partially because everyone liked me and I never felt like I belonged to a clique. Oftentimes it was (still is?) hard because several of my friends tend to dislike each other and things would be so much easier if I could just hang out with more than one person at a time. Especially now that I live at least 40 minutes away from anyone I would call a friend, I seem to be doing a whole lot of driving which is not as easy as it sounds. But I digress. If Parkville really was like the way The Breakfast Club would have me believe, I would have hated high school. In fact, it is for this reason that I refuse to go to the five year reunion and may not even go to the ten year reunion (of course, by that time I'll be starting my 3rd year of med school). I have such fond memories of high school and do not want to ruin them by seeing all my after-the-fact suspicions confirmed. As shoddy and unrealistic (can five sixteen-year-olds really have catharses in one Saturday?) as Hughes' writing was, it made me finally understand why so many people hated high school.