FT Top 100 Films 39: THE BREAKFAST CLUB

HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!

The thing about The Breakfast Club is that it’s the only one of the bratpack movies that’s really about school. In (most of) the others, school is there (apart from the couple that are about post-school), but only really as somewhere to run down the corridors punching the lockers to show your FRUSTRATION with life, rather than the main place that people spend their time. I think it’s possibly the only one with a proper geek in as well (Duckie is *not* a geek, although Cameron might be, but he’s hanging with Ferris, so I doubt it), and what do you know, he doesn’t get to get off with anyone, just write the smartass essay. Admittedly there are some dreadful bits in the film (the smoking dope bit and the making-over ally sheedy bit, as if you needed telling), but they kind of add to the charm of it for me, as do the characters’ reasons for being in detention (and the fact that the hard kid is called “bender” of course, teehee). Of course, due to the industrial action during the 80s in the UK, it was hard enough getting a teacher in the classroom Monday to Friday, so the idea that one would come in on a Saturday (or that the kids would, for that matter), was a strange and alien one to 15 year old me, watching it relatively late at night on the portable in my bedroom (did anyone actually see these films in the cinema?), with all the swearing cut out.

The best bit is at the end though, where they realise that no matter what they’ve learnt about each other, they don’t think it’ll make a damn bit of difference once they get back to the “real world” of school, whatever they say now, because they are so tied up in their different social groups, only those with no status already would be happy to talk to the rest…

OK, OK, OK, the best bit is molly ringwald putting her lipstick on without using her hands, who am I kidding…