While visiting with some friends the other day, our conversation somehow took a journey to our favorite parts of the John Hughes classic film, The Breakfast Club. It (our conversation) stayed there a while and upon doing so, created in me an insatiable desire to watch the movie already that night. So many wondrous lines spoken from the lips of  irresistible characters, all the while set to the backdrop of a tear-inspiring soundtrack. I needed that. How long it had been since I last set eyes on this film, I cannot say, but this is one that Chris and I still drop lines from on a regular basis.

How can I begin to put into words anything appropriate enough to honor such a timeless film experience? Our friend’s 16-year-old son is already listing The Breakfast Club on his short list of favorite films! But, I have to find the words, because why should I let such a good thing lie? I think I aught to visit about it.

My favorite thing about the movie  is the vast difference between the five main characters, and yet, they all seem to have that one thing in common, that they can spend a Saturday together in detention, and come out feeling a sense of connectedness to one another. They let down their guard by the end of the film, revealing the vulnerabilities that make each of them who they are and the reason we fall in love.

Let’s look:

John Bender

The Criminal

Everybody loves a good bad boy, right? John Bender is outstanding in that capacity. He runs the show here, and perhaps doesn’t even intend to. His antagonistic character does an incredible job of throwing a sometimes sensitive topic out among his detention peers and then watches them open up about it. He does it when it comes to what they eat for lunch. He does it when they open up about their “unsatisfying” home lives. He even does it when they reveal to one another about their love experiences. His powerful presence shows off his seemingly impenetrable outer exterior, and yet, we are given witness to his vulnerable side two times towards the end of the film. Once when Principal Vernon threatens him in the broom closet, causing him to appear down right scared, and again when Claire meets him in the same closet and dusts a soft kiss on the side of his neck. “Why’d you do that?” He asks her. “Because I knew you wouldn’t,” she says.

My most favorite line from John Bender: “Do you think I’d speak for you? I don’t even know your language!”

Claire Standish

The Princess

It’s the princess that usually falls for the bad boy, anyway, right? Claire fits the mold of princess flawlessly as she was sent to detention for skipping school to go shopping! She is so popular, everyone at Sherman High School loves her, as she so boastfully states in the later part of the film. Sushi for lunch, diamond earrings from daddy…But, with some nudging (well, prodding would be more like it) from John Bender, a verbal trap set by Allison and some healthy peer pressure from the others, Claire displays her vulnerability by breaking down, confessing her hatred for leading the life she leads and the pressure she feels as a result of her popularity. She reveals her lack of an ability to think for herself when she admits that she would, in fact, deny her relationships with John Bender, Allison and Brian to her popular crowd. So, at the end, when she kisses John Bender and gives him one of her diamond earrings, is that due to her mere attraction to a bad boy , or has he broken her down that much?

My most favorite line from Claire Standish: “See, you’re afraid that they won’t take you, you don’t belong, so you have to just dump all over it.”

Brian Johnson

The Brain

Sweet, Brian. In Saturday detention for keeping a flare gun in his locker to cause punishment upon himself for failing shop class. He provides much of the comic relief, here, and I can’t help but want to scoop him up and put him in my pocket. His parents have placed so much pressure on him to receive straight A’s in school. He participates in academic (not social) clubs such as the math club, the Latin club and the physics club, where he talks about physics and the properties of physics. His mom prepares peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off for lunch. So duly noted by John Bender upon inspection of everyone’s lunch bags. He displays his vulnerable side throughout, but most memorably after, through his tears, asks them if they want to know why he’s there in detention. When no one answers, he shouts, “DO YOU??!” (This is one of the lines Chris and I drop quite often around here). Brian is given the sole duty of writing the report assigned to them by Principal Vernon stating who they think they are. Claire admits to not wanting to write it, personally, but boosts him up by telling him he’s the smartest and there for most capable of providing an appropriate answer.

My most favorite line from Brian Johnson: “Are you gonna be, like, a shopping bag lady? You know, like, sit in alleyways and, like, talk to buildings and wear men’s shoes and that kinda thing? “

Andrew Clark

The Jock

I kind of feel the same experience  of pity with Andy that I do with Brian. And, I’m sure I shouldn’t take pity on them. Andy is like Claire in that he falls into the popular crowd. But, like Brian, he feels parental pressure to do well in school. The difference here, though, is that it isn’t academic pressure, but athletic pressure. To be the toughest, best wrestler he can be and even better than that. He got caught in a moment of weakness, hearing his dad in his head, telling him to be tougher and tougher. That was the reason for his detention, because he taped Larry Lester’s buns together. His moment of vulnerability came when he expressed his remorse for bullying a weaker classmate, concerned for the humiliation Larry must have felt going home that day and sharing with his family what had happened to him. He confesses his secret desire to have his knee give out so he can’t wrestle anymore and his father would forget all about him.

My most favorite line from Andrew Clark: “If I loose my temper, you’re totaled, man.”

Allison Reynolds

The Basket Case

Believe it or don’t, but the character I most appreciate is Allison Reynolds. She doesn’t even make a sound all morning until after Claire speaks about her own parents, saying, “It’s like they use me just to get back at each other.” That’s when we first hear from Allison, as she shouts, “Ha!” She is a quiet, reserved girl, claiming no friends and the desire to be in detention all day Saturday because she has nothing better to do! She finds delight in drawing a beautiful landscape scene, then decorating it with “snow” from her own dandruff! She collects other people’s treasures and sneaks them into her bag. We see Allison’s heart on her sleeve when she speaks one-on-one with Andy, telling him that her parents ignore her. He can relate. We see her continue to soften and open up when she allows Claire to give her a make-over, taking all that black stuff off her eyes. My favorite part is after she comes out of the bathroom, hair pulled back, eyes bright.  Brian gives her a look of disbelief and she mouths the words, “Thank you.”

My favorite line from Allison Reynolds: “You do everything everyone tells you to do and that is a problem.”

The Breakfast Club is a beautiful collaboration of differences, which, in the end, turn out to be not all that different. I, personally, feel sad when it ends, because I don’t know what will happen between our characters. I don’t like an open-ended conclusion. Will Claire and John Bender speak on Monday? Will Allison give back the State Champion patch that she pulled off of Andy’s Letter Jacket? Is Brian acknowledged by Claire and Andy in the weeks to come? How do I know? What do you think?