The Breakfast Club

6/30/2020

Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/tCnm1BN1iAs The brain, the athlete, the princess, the basket case, and the criminal - yes we’re talking about _The Breakfast Club_. It’s been dubbed as a seminal film of the 1980s and takes a place as an intergenerational classic. _They were five students with nothing in common, faced with spending a Saturday detention together in their high school library. At 7.00am they had nothing to say, but by 4.00pm they had bared their souls to each other and become The Breakfast Club._ Directed by John Hughes and starring Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy it rightly deserves that spot as a revered movie. It's very much a comedy-drama and is surprisingly deep in parts, like the

9/19/2021

_**Forced, artificial dialogs with eye-rolling character arcs**_ Released in 1985 and written & directed by John Hughes, "The Breakfast Club" is a teen dramedy about five high school students from five different sub-cultures during an all-day detention over the weekend at their suburban Chicago school. Molly Ringwald plays the popular girl, Emilio Estevez the jock, Anthony Michael Hall the Brainiac nerd, Judd Nelson the dope-smoking rebel and Ally Sheedy the neurotic misfit. Paul Gleason and John Kapelos are on hand as the host principal and janitor respectively This movie has a big reputation as an 80's teen flick, but I was wholly disappointed. Most of the discussions between the five students from different cliques come across contrived and unconvincing. Some of the dialog is actu

6/18/2023

An absolute classic, and no mistake. If you disagree, sorry, you're wrong. John Hughes was an utter genius.

1/20/2025

I'd struggle to recall any other of Judd Nelson's films, but in this he really does shine. He's the obvious recalcitrant amongst five teenage youths who have been dragged into school on a Saturday for some seemingly rather pointless detention. This is manna from heaven for their headmaster "Vernon" (Paul Gleason), who takes pleasure in exercising his gradually dwindling authority over his charges. Whilst he leaves them to work, they set about assembling and disassembling each other's character. Nelson ("Bender") is the outlaw: loud, brash and a pain in the neck. "Andrew" (Emilio Estevez) is the high-school athlete; "Claire" (Molly Ringwald) the slightly aloof of the group; "Brian" (Anthony Michael Hall) is the swat and "Allison" (Ally Sheedy) - well she's the enigma of the group, rarely de

6/8/2025

I absolutely love this film. When I saw that Ster-Kinekor was having a throwback screening, I immediately went to book my tickets to see it on the big screen. I still think The Breakfast Club is an incredible film, and the core message it presents remains deeply important and relevant even today. I love the premise: a group of seemingly random students in detention: the jock, the emo kid, the popular girl, the nerd, the rule-breaker, all thrown together. As the day unfolds, the labels fall away, and they begin to form a bond. They come to realise that everyone is dealing with their own struggles, that everyone has a voice, a goal, and a place in the world. That sense of unity and empathy, of coming together despite differences, is what I adore most. The film sends such a powerful