The Breakfast Club movie storyline. To contemplate the error of their ways, a small group of five stereotypical high school students has to sacrifice an entire Saturday in detention. For the following long eight hours and fifty-four minutes, a quintet of perfect strangers–wrestling athlete, Andrew Clark; pampered daddy’s girl, Claire Standish; neurotic oddball, Allison Reynolds; brainy Brian Johnson, and John Bender, a rebel without a cause–will have to stay put, and write an essay of no less than a thousand words describing who they think they are.
Now, as the quiet library of Shermer High School becomes a cold prison, the five strangers with nothing in common have no other choice but to wait, and perhaps, in the meantime, look beyond appearance. Indeed, others see them as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. But, when all is said and done, they will be the Breakfast Club.
The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. It stars Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. It tells the story of five teenagers from different high school cliques who serve a Saturday detention overseen by their authoritarian vice-principal.
The Breakfast Club premiered in Los Angeles on February 7, 1985, and was theatrically released by Universal Pictures on February 15, 1985. It grossed $51.5 million against a $1 million budget, and earned acclaim from critics, who consider it to be one of Hughes’s most memorable and recognizable works. The media subsequently referred to the film’s five main actors as members of a group called the “Brat Pack”.
In 2015, the film was digitally remastered and was re-screened in 430 theaters in celebration of its 30th anniversary. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
About the Story
On Saturday, March 24, 1984, five students at Shermer High School report at 7:00 a.m. for an all-day detention: nerdy Brian Johnson, varsity wrestler Andrew Clark, introverted outcast Allison Reynolds, popular snob Claire Standish, and rebellious delinquent John Bender. In voiceover, the five are described respectively as “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal”.
They gather in the school library, where Vice Principal Richard Vernon instructs them to not talk, move from their seats, or sleep until they are released at 4:00 p.m. He assigns them a thousand-word essay, in which each must describe “who you think you are.” He leaves, returning only occasionally to check on and reprimand them.
John ignores the rules and spends most of his time bullying or harassing Claire, Brian, and Andrew. They all eventually feel sorry for him after seeing how he deals with abusive adults like Vernon, who gives John eight weekends’ worth of additional detention.
At one point, the five sneak out of the library to retrieve John’s marijuana stash; John allows himself to be apprehended by Vernon in order to give the others time to return to the library undetected. Vernon locks John in a storage closet as punishment, but he escapes and returns to the library by crawling through the ceiling panels. The others help John hide and cover for him when Vernon comes to investigate the noise created by John’s escape.
The students pass the time by talking, arguing, listening to music, and smoking marijuana. Gradually, they open up and reveal their secrets and their poor relationships with their parents. Claire’s popularity subjects her to intense peer pressure, and her parents use her to get back at each other during arguments; John’s father is physically and verbally abusive; Allison is a compulsive liar with neglectful parents and dreams of running away from home.
Andrew admits that his father emotionally abuses him to get him to succeed in wrestling, leaving Andrew feeling unable to think for himself; he was sent to detention for taping another student’s buttocks together, hoping to win his father’s approval. Brian is under such pressure from his parents to get good grades that he contemplated suicide after getting an F in shop class; he was sent to detention for bringing a flare gun to school for that purpose. Allison claims that she wasn’t actually sent to detention, and merely showed up for lack of anything better to do. They all realize that, despite their differences, they face similar problems.
Meanwhile, Vernon complains to the janitor, Carl, that students today are less respectful than they were earlier in his teaching career. Carl tells Vernon that it is him that has changed, not the students. Claire gives Allison a makeover, which sparks romantic interest from Andrew. Claire decides to break her “pristine” innocent appearance by kissing John. Although suspecting their new relationships will end when detention is over, they believe their mutual experiences will change the way they look at their peers.
As the detention nears its end, the group requests that Brian complete the assigned essay for everyone and John returns to the storage closet so Vernon thinks he never left. Brian leaves the essay in the library for Vernon to read after they leave. As the students part ways, Allison and Andrew kiss, as do Claire and John. Allison rips Andrew’s state championship patch from his jacket to keep and Claire gives John one of her diamond earrings.
Vernon reads the essay, in which Brian states that Vernon has already judged who they are using stereotypes, but “each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?” He signs the essay with “Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Directed by: John Hughes
Starring: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Perry Crawford, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Mary Christian, John Kapelos, Fran Gargano, John Hughes
Screenplay by: John Hughes
Production Design by: John W. Corso
Cinematography by: Thomas Del Ruth
Film Editing by: Dede Allen
Costume Design by: Marilyn Vance
Set Decoration by: Jennifer Polito
Music by: Keith Forsey
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: February 15, 1985
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