Okay, here it goes. I have a confession to make. I don’t love John Hughes’ teen romances. Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink: not for me. (Though “Pretty in Pink” by the Psychedelic Furs is a great song.)
I love John Hughes in other contexts: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Home Alone. If there’s a John Hughes comedy about family or friendship, I’m seated. He’s at his best when there’s no romance involved. That’s why I propose that the ending of The Breakfast Club eliminate its romantic subplots. Time-traveling script doctors, please take note.
To give a refresher on the plot, The Breakfast Club takes place one Saturday at a high school in a Chicago suburb. Five students from different cliques report to Saturday detention: honour student Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), jock Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), basket case Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy), popular Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), and rebel John Bender (Judd Nelson). The principal demands that they spend the day writing an essay about “who you think you are.” Throughout the day, the five students open up to each other about their personal problems and why they’re in detention. As their bonds deepen, Claire gives Allison a makeover, swapping her goth-adjacent makeup for a more conventionally pretty look. Andrew finds himself attracted to Allison. The two share a kiss in the falling action of the film. John and Claire kiss as well. The film ends with the iconic shot of John Bender pumping his fist in the air as he walks across the football field, triumphant that he scored with a beautiful girl.
My high school friends loved The Breakfast Club. It was the 2010s, and they loved anything vintage. In retrospect, I wonder if they enjoyed The Breakfast Club more for its aesthetics than for its story, but, of course, I can’t speak for them. I always hesitated to express that I didn’t love this classic movie. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
As I got older, I learned more about film. I learned how nostalgia works. A deep dive into the history of Star Wars will teach you that. I made my way through the 2010s, and newer teen movies caught my attention: The Edge of Seventeen, Lady Bird, Booksmart. I thought about it, and I decided for myself that I did not love The Breakfast Club because I was born too late.
Movies that were innovative for their time sometimes disappoint viewers watching them decades later. If a movie is good, it inspires young filmmakers. They emulate it in their works. The trope novelty wears off to a point where younger cinephiles wonder how it was ever considered groundbreaking. Many iconic movie scenes are forever spoiled for me because they are forever tied to Simpsons gags I watched at age twelve.
At a certain point in my early twenties, I figured I could not get into The Breakfast Club because I had seen its tropes borrowed so many times in other movies and shows that they lost their impact within the original source. Just an aside, when I was thirteen, I wrote and directed a school play that I now realize was a rip-off of The Breakfast Club. I had never seen the movie.
Even though I developed a personal narrative for why I did not love the movie, I still hesitated to reveal my opinion to others. I scarcely heard a lukewarm opinion about The Breakfast Club. Then, one day, I found one on one of my favourite podcasts, What Went Wrong.
The podcast, hosted by Lizzie Bowman and Chris Winterbauer, details the productions of movies both beloved and panned. They did an episode on The Breakfast Club. I always appreciate it when they do episodes on human-scale movies like Clueless and Boyz n the Hood. Audiences tend to think troubled productions are exclusive to films with elaborate VFX, stunts, or production design. Dramas and comedies can be just as complex. The Breakfast Club is no exception.
When the two hosts expressed complicated feelings about the film, my first thought was: there are dozens of us! Dozens!
Bowman and Winterbauer had different relationships with The Breakfast Club. Bowman grew up watching clips of the film on TV, but she had never watched it in its entirety before making the podcast episode. Winterbauer loved the movie as a teen. Both were taken aback by how Bender treats Claire in the film. Winterbauer admitted that he didn’t remember those scenes. Bowman speculated that one’s relationship to The Breakfast Club is likely shaped by the age at which you first watch it. She echoed my sentiment that the characters were insightful then, but they look stock to us watching in the 2020s.
When I first listened to the episode, I was a good ten years removed from my last rewatch of the film. Like Winterbauer, I, too, had forgotten how Bender treats Claire in the early scenes. I had never considered it a factor in why I was lukewarm towards the film, but it was.
Molly Ringwald penned an article in The New Yorker in April 2018, just months after the height of #MeToo. In the article, Ringwald details her complicated feelings about the John Hughes movies she starred in. As an adult, she’s had to confront the racism and sexism prevalent in the films.
Molly Ringwald was not the first Breakfast Club lady to criticize the film. Ally Sheedy has long critiqued her character’s makeover scene. Elle interviewed Sheedy in 2015 for the movie’s 30th anniversary. Sheedy stated that during production, she pleaded to John Hughes that Allison’s makeover scene be “more like she’s taking this mask off” rather than an attempt to beautify her. Hughes listened to an extent. The makeover didn’t include a lot of makeup. Still, the scene is the subject of many Internet think pieces. It doesn’t have the best message for or about women.
Both Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy are ultimately grateful for The Breakfast Club. Still, I think their characters are owed a better ending. If you are reading this from another dimension where The Breakfast Club screenplay doesn’t exist, please write it with the following changes:
- Fix John Bender’s treatment of Claire. He can still be a troubled teen who taunts Principal Vernon (Paul Gleeson). He doesn’t have to harass his classmates as well. Punch up, not down.
- Replace the makeover scene. It’s a short movie with five great characters. This scene could be swapped with a different character moment.
- Eliminate the romantic subplots.
The Breakfast Club doesn’t need romance. Even if we fix the part where Bender’s harassment of Claire is ultimately rewarded with a kiss (problematic), the point of the movie shouldn’t be teens hooking up. Throughout the film, the five students learn they have more in common than they might have thought. They start to see past their cliques. Finally, they realize how they might move forward from the incidents that got them sent to detention and the larger problems those incidents represent.
The film is a great example of a “tight ninety.” It does what it sets out to do in an economical ninety minutes (ninety-seven, actually, but close enough. There are credits.) Those ninety-seven minutes include the budding romances (hormones?) between the film’s two couples. If those were cut out, think of how many more character scenes could fill out the movie in their place.
A cynical viewer might consider that the romances present in the film won’t go anywhere. If the film’s tagline, “they only met once, but it changed their lives forever,” is considered, the hookups feel empty. That’s not to suggest that a short-lived romance can’t have a deep impact on someone’s life, but the movie gives the sense that the life-changing parts of that Saturday aren’t the make-out sessions.
The closing shot of Bender fist-pumping on the football field is iconic. A reflective look into the distance would be better. The look would have to capture a lot, but Judd Nelson has the acting chops to pull it off. The right facial expression would be the best coda to the parts of the film that matter.
Sources:
Ringwald, M. (2018, April 6). What About “The Breakfast Club”? The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/what-about-the-breakfast-club-molly-ringwald-metoo-john-hughes-pretty-in-pink
Sad Boom Media. (2023, October 7). The Breakfast Club. What Went Wrong. episode.
Zemler, E. (2015, March 26). Ally Sheedy Is Not A Fan of Her “Breakfast Club” Makeover Scene. Elle. https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a27439/ally-sheedy-breakfast-club-interview/
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