Film "The Breakfast Club": actors, roles, plot

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In 1985, the famous director John Hughes, who wrote the screenplays for such movie hits as "Curly Sue", "Beethoven", "101 Dalmatians" and "Home Alone", made the film "The Breakfast Club". The actors and the roles played by them are remembered by many people. Although the time of the creation of the film has been pushed back from us by 30 years, the story about five schoolchildren is called the standard of youth cinema even today.

Movie plot

The film tells the story of five teenagers from the fictional Shermer School in Illinois. For various faults, they were left to study on Saturday in March 1984. These five are complete strangers and belong to different social groups and school groups. Their names are:

• John Bender (Judd Nelson) - "criminal";
• Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) - "Princess";
• Brian Johnson (Anthony M. Hall) - "brain";
• Andy Clark (Emilio Estevez) - "athlete";
• Alison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) - "Weird".

Mr. Vernon, the principal of the school, gives them a task as punishment for their misdeeds: write an essay on the topic "Who do you think you are?".

On the day described in the film, teenagers entertain themselves as best they can: they dance, run after each other, tell stories about themselves, fight and smoke marijuana. Gradually, they become sincere with each other, telling their secrets. Allison, for example, is a pathological liar. Brian and Claire are ashamed of their virginity. Andy is in trouble because of his overbearing father.

Kids also discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. Despite this, the children develop friendships. The only thing they are afraid of is to stop communicating with each other after returning to their groups.

In the end, each of them opens up new character traits. Claire shows leadership qualities. Bender becomes more gentle and friendly towards others. The girl even kisses him at the end of the film and it seems that a romantic relationship begins between them. Andy became interested in Allison after Claire gave her makeup a makeover.

At Claire's request, supported by the entire group, Brian agrees to write an essay to Mr. Vernon to dispel his preconceived notions about them. This essay reveals the main idea of the film. The students sign the "Breakfast Club" essay and leave it on the teacher's desk before leaving.

There are two versions of this letter. The first is read behind the scenes inthe beginning of the movie, and the second at the end. They are not much, but they differ, illustrating the change in the attitudes of schoolchildren. In the end, they realize that they are not so different after all.

The beginning of the letter is as follows: “Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept that we had to sacrifice a day off as punishment for the mistakes we made. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to ask us to write an essay and tell you who we think we are. Do you care? You perceive us the way you want. You call us "brainy", "athlete", "hopeless case", "princess" and "criminal". Correctly? This is how we saw each other at seven o'clock in the morning. We made a mistake.”

The letter read before the end credits reads: “Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept that we had to sacrifice a day off as punishment for the mistakes we made. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to ask us to write an essay and tell you who we think we are. Do you care? You perceive us the way you want. But we found out that each of us is both a “smart guy”, and an “athlete”, and a “nutty”, and a “princess”, and a “criminal”. Is this the answer to the question asked? Sincerely, Members of the Breakfast Club.

The letter is central to the film as it illustrates the changes teenagers go through during the day. Their relationship and opinion about each other became different. Everything is perfect nowotherwise for each of them, which is very authentically played by the actors. The Breakfast Club ends as the punished leave the school building. The final frame shows Bender raising his hand in farewell and disappearing into the dark frame. Then the end credits roll.

The actors of the film "The Breakfast Club"

Starring: Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez. The film made the actors famous. Unfortunately, in the future, none of them managed to repeat this success. Neither the beauty Molly, nor the reckless Judd, nor the budding Emilio Estevez (the son of the American artist Martin Sheen) became real Hollywood stars after the movie The Breakfast Club. Actors were only really teen idols in the 80s.

Features of the painting

The Breakfast Club is still at the top of Entertainment Weekly's Top 50 High School Movies. For a film with little to no action, this is an amazing result.

The picture is like a theatrical play: long dialogues, one location, a small number of characters. Later, the director even slightly rewrote the script into a theatrical play so that it could be used in school productions.

Interesting movie facts

There are a lot of interesting details in the history of the film "The Breakfast Club". The actors who played the main roles originally wanted a different character to film. For example, Molly Ringwald planned to get the role of "weird"Allison, which was eventually given to actress Ally Sheedy. Also, the director originally wanted Emilio Estevez to play the role of troubled teenager Bender, but Hughes couldn't find the right actor to play the athlete Andy Clark, and Estevez ended up playing her. The director even wanted to invite Nicolas Cage to play Bender, but he refused.

Judd Nelson had a rocky relationship with co-star Molly Ringwald, it was so messed up that the director even wanted to cut him out of the movie.

Music for the film

In the tape sounds the hit of Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me). It became the hallmark of the film The Breakfast Club. Actors, plot - everything in this little masterpiece is organically supported by a wonderful soundtrack. There are a lot of good melodies in the tape, creating a unique atmosphere of the 80s. Singers Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol later regretted that they refused to participate in the Hughes project.

The best teen movie is undoubtedly The Breakfast Club. The actors created unforgettable images in which every adult can recognize himself in his youth. This movie is about who we are and who we want to be. Such films are not forgotten, they are relevant even now.