“You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct?” The Breakfast Club is an insightful and riveting film that centers around the never-ending battle of understanding what others think of you versus knowing who you truly are, despite what people deem you as. The movie touches on multiple topics teens seem to understand all too well. From abusive households to societal norms and cliques created in school.
The movie highlights how the world tries to put everyone in a box and expects nothing less from what they “should be”. The teens in the movie come to realize that they are much more than what is expected from them and that they are not too different from each other.
The movie was refreshing, being able to see teenagers being teens even to the most exaggerated extents was something that made the film even more interesting and fun to watch. With a film titled “The Breakfast Club”, I had no idea what to expect which left a lot of room for the imagination!
I racked my brain multiple times to find a reason for the title given to the film. For me, “The Breakfast Club” means the assortment of kids from different backgrounds with different lives that come and make detention a haven for their true identities. Just like the assortments and variations people might have for breakfast, I believe the same can be applied to the characters of the movie.
Multiple scenes stand out to me or pull on my heartstrings. Things between the characters start off rocky but we see how they progressively start bonding. I enjoyed it when they started running the corridors trying not to get caught. This scene solidified their relationship and led to them confessing the reason they were in detention. I find the scene where they are all gathered to be my favorite. We learn Andy, the jock, taped someone down as a form to seek validation from his father. Brian, the brain, had attempted to take his life, however, the flare gun he intended to use went off in his locker. Clare, the princess, skipped school to go shopping. Bender, the criminal, pulled the fire alarm. And Allison, the basket case, willingly showed up to detention since she had nothing better to do.
The scene followed by the bittersweet ending was executed in such a way that made you wish things were different. Ironic, I feel as though the ending is intentional to reflect on how multitudes wish daily that things were indeed different. I know that no matter how I twist the ending, the Breakfast Club did not speak that next school day because although they knew who they truly were society would never let them off the hook so easily. I would have loved to see a second film seeing how they interacted or how they grew up. I still like to believe that they reunited one more time and were able to bond once more. Silly it may seem, but I wish that in another universe The Breakfast Club got their happy ending.
