‘The Breakfast Club’ Brings the ’80s Back to Theaters for Its 40th Anniversary

An opus to teenage angst, “The Breakfast Club,” is returning to theaters on September 7 and 10 for its 40th anniversary. Many 1980s classics are celebrating that milestone this decade, but being rereleased is a special honor, testifying to nostalgia for the Reagan era and the universal struggles we face when coming of age.The director of “The Breakfast Club,” John Hughes — like the man who helmed “Citizen Kane,” Orson Welles — brought a fresh perspective to filmmaking. Ignorant of Hollywood conventions, he planned the film as his debut. He faced doubts over his inexperience and raised a paltry $1 million, which limited him to shooting at a single location.Maine North High School at Des Plaines, Illinois, doubles for the fictional Shermer High School. The cement building invokes a prison, providing what fiction writers call “the crucible” confining the five high schoolers. Because they’re assigned Saturday detention for various offenses, none of them can escape.The film takes that tedious situation — young people watching each tick of the clock, waiting for their lives to resume — and tells a story heavy on dialogue and character. The students arrive believing they share nothing other than their predicament but discover more as they’re ordered to “sit there and do nothing,” not even study.The characters are archetypes familiar to any school — “The Athlete,” Emilo Estevez as wrestler Andrew Clark; “The Brain,” Anthony Michael Hall’s Brian Johnson; and “The Criminal,” Judd Nelson’s John Bender, whose name was given to the robot misanthrope Bender in a landmark cartoon, “Futurama.”There’s also “the Princess,” Molly Ringwald’s Claire Standish. Easy to overlook, by design, is “the Basket Case,” Ally Sheedy’s Allison Reynolds, who is silent for much of the first hour. The actors were dubbed “The Brat Pack” after their collaboration, a play on “The Rat Pack” helmed by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. decades earlier.The ersatz jailer is the vice principal, Paul Gleason’s Richard Vernon. At a time when authority figures were often copies of Dean Wormer from 1978’s “Animal House,” he’s memorable as a pathetic disciplinarian who has nothing but his power. The students dismiss as “crazy” his assigning them to write essays on who they think they are.Reading from the single essay he produces for the group in the opening, the Brain tells Vernon that he views the students only as labels, not as individuals. They confess to having been “brainwashed” into seeing one another in the same, superficial ways before sharing their troubles.The conflicts become clear the moment Vernon exits the library. The Basket Case spits chewed fingernails at the Criminal. He harasses the Princess. “If you disappeared,” the Athlete tells him, “it wouldn’t make any difference.” Mr. Judd’s reaction shows how the remark wounds. The two boys, he later says, don’t even speak the same language.A sign that the alienated kids are united by their station comes when the Criminal closes the door Vernon has propped open so he can keep an eye on the group. The students profess ignorance, even the Princess — though after using her credibility as a “popular” kid, she glares at Bender.As the movie unfolds, the students engage in hijinks between emotional discussions of the pressure put on them by their parents. The timeless themes explain the story’s staying power. The period is also compelling, as reported in Monday’s Washington Post story: “Gen Z Conservatives Love the ‘Reagan-Bush ’84’” T-shirt.Clothes, music, and slang like “neo-maxi-zoom dweebie” make “The Breakfast Club” a documentary for the young. But for those like this columnist who were in high school at the time, it’s a chance to take stock. Did we realize the Athlete’s fear of being “like our parents” because, as the Basket Case says, “When you grow up, your heart dies”?“The Breakfast Club” is a reminder of how people, though different on the surface, share common humanity. Rereleased in an era where we filter our true selves on social media and interact through screens, it’s a reminder that we are, “each of us” — as the students declare — a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.

‘The Breakfast Club’ Brings the ’80s Back to Theaters for Its 40th Anniversary

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