18 January 2011

The Breakfast Club and a Quasi-Tribute


The Breakfast Club, 1985

Plato once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle." I think that no film embraces this message as well as The Breakfast Club, John Hughes' story about "Five strangers with nothing in common, except each other." 

It's the story of five teenagers forced to spend a whole Saturday in detention together. They couldn't be any more different. There's Brian 'The Brain', Andy, 'The Athlete', Allison, 'The Basket Case', Claire, 'The Princess', and John, 'The Criminal'. They don't know each other, but they don't like each other.

As the day goes on however, they realize that they have more in common than they know. They share their heartbreak, rage, fears and anxieties with each other and grow closer than they ever could have imagined.

The Breakfast Club illustrates the hardships, frustrations, and pressures associated with being in high school. I don't think anybody has ever captured exactly what it's like being a teenager better than John Hughes. He always had the most perfect understanding of what teens went through, and how difficult, frightening, and glorious it is. His greatest films show this talent time and again: along with The Breakfast Club there was Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, even Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

John Hughes truly was the voice of a generation and continues to inspire.

John Hughes
February 18, 1950
August 6, 2009


P.S. I realized that this was supposed to be about The Breakfast Club, but somehow it segued into John Hughes. Oh well, what do you want me to do?

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