Suburban life often gets an interesting treatment in films. Many filmmakers (David Lynch, Sam Mendes and Todd Field, for example) like to show suburbia’s seedy underside, the dark and ugly truth behind its shiny veneer. The cynical imagination revels in these depictions – and yet, they are often foreboding exaggerations meant to expose the hypocrisy behind the idea of the American Dream. It is John Hughes who perhaps best shows its normalcy, its accepted place within the American psyche, and through this lens he seeks to explore the trials and angsts of teenagers. And while we certainly shouldn’t take his depictions of the teenage years as universal (all these families are well-off middle class – heck, they live in suburbia), they nevertheless serve as a relatable portrait of the struggles of youth.
The Breakfast Club is the film with which we are concerned today. What happens when five representatives of five different classes in high school society are thrown together for a day of detention? “Brain, Beauty, Jock, Rebel, Recluse” – these are the labels given to these kids. Yet, when pitted together against an unsympathetic authority figure, they realize they have more in common than they think – and maybe, just maybe, this theme of the breaking down of social barriers is more than a little relevant today.
The Breakfast Club is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special screening tomorrow Saturday, March 28th at Baxter Avenue Theater at 7:30. The theater is located at 1250 Bardstown Road. Full information can be found on the theater website.
Image courtesy of the Internet Movie Database.
