Date: 1985Â
Director: John Hughes
Actors/ Characters: Emilio Estevez/ Andrew Clark, Paul Gleason/ Richard Vernon, Anthony Michael Hall/ Brian Johnson, Judd Nelson/ John Bender, Molly Ringwald/ Claire Standish,  Ally Sheedy/ Allison Reynolds
Summary:Â Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.
Review
This film is a genius and simplified representation of teenage life, Hughes is a director that really 'gets' people. 'The Breakfast Club' at its core is a film about pre-conceived judgements that adults place on the youth and the toll that it takes on them.
The reason why I feel this movie is timeless is because it seems to perfectly sum up the immortal issues teenagers have: not wanting to become their parents, the desire to build a better future and be better, adults looking down on them, the list goes on. Â It was this message that really stood out to me when watching the film. Hughes really makes you think about how you want the world to see you and what you want to become in the future.
The cast of The Breakfast Club was superb and the development of each individual character was touching to watch. Bender was a character I despised to begin with, his disgusting and taunting comments to Claire made me strongly dislike him to start with. Then we learn about Bender's rough home life and realise that he became a criminal because people acted like he was one. I loved the scene in which Bender acted out his home life in a tense and emotional monologue and I thought Nelson was spectacular in his performance here. In the end of the film Bender becomes a selfless character sacrificing his weekends for 2 months so that his new friends can go free therefore Hughes rewards his selfless actions with Claire's affection at the end of the film and he emerges victorious in the famous fist-pounding-the-air still at the end.
I liked the fact that by the end of the movie Allison was much more integrated in the group but in that I felt everything that was unique and quirky about her character was lost. I disliked how simply by Claire making Allison over she was a changed woman as I felt this representation of femininity was extremely vain and regressive. Therefore I thought Andrew's affections towards Allison were disingenuous and purely based off physical appearance.
By far my favourite scene of the entire film was when the teenagers sit in the library and explain to one another how they landed Saturday detention. This scene was not glorified or dramatised and was filled with raw emotion- something I find many films lack nowadays and is an attribute to Hughes' direction.Â
The motif of the letter in the film was excellently used. The voice over of the students reading it out demonstrates how their opinions of one another and themselves changed over the course of the day.
"Dear Mr. Vernon:
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... ...and an athlete... ...and a basket case... ...a princess... ...and a criminal.
Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club."