Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club

I always have a soft spot for teen movies. Some of my favorites are Ten Things I Hate About You, Clueless and Center Stage. But after seeing The Breakfast Club (1983) twice last Saturday (yes twice. I saw it twice in one day cause it’s THAT good), I fell in love with it. I think it’s one of the best teen movies of all time. I love the characters, the conversations and the simplicity of it’s execution. It’s fun and cliché, yet deep and tragic at the same time.

It tells the story of five high school’s students as they report for Saturday detention. While not complete strangers, the five teenagers; Bender (Judd Nelson), Claire (Molly Ringwald), Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), Andy (Emilio Estévez) and Allison (Ally Sheedy), are all from different cliques. They pass detention hours in variety of ways: they harass each other, tell stories, tell lies, fight, flirt, dance, smoke marijuana, making a mess, and eventually, open up revealing each others secrets. They also discover that they're not as different as they think they are. They have things in common, which are having difficult relationships with their parents and afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them.

My favorite line is at the ending, when they finished their detention and have to go back to their lives. Brian reads the essay assigned to them by Mr. Vernon (the antagonistic principal, played by Paul Gleason). This is what he wrote:

Brian: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain,

Andrew: An athlete,

Allison: A basket case,

Claire: A princess,

Bender: And a criminal.

Brian: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

It's a good movie, go see it if you have a chance. Even if you hate teen flicks. Seriously.

Illustration from here, pics from here & here