Sheila at The Sheila Variations has a 20th birthday celebration of the 1985 movie “The Breakfast Club“.
This is a great movie. If you didn’t know these people in high school, I think you’re lying to yourself. You may have even been one of them. I wasn’t, but I swear I knew everyone of them.
The thing about high school is not so much that you’re learning whatever your classes are about, but that you’re learning to be an adult. You’re on your own much of the day, after a certain age most people get a car or fairly ready access to one (making them independently mobile), and Mom and Dad cease to be the biggest influences in your life. If you’re really lucky, you make friendships that will last through your life. In 4 years, the world changes.
You will never grow so much as you will in high school and college, with the exception of military service. And you will never, ever hurt like you do in high school, because it’s all new. Yeah, you’ll hurt when a girlfriend dumps you in college, but it will never hurt like it did when the first one dumped you in high school.
The Breakfast Club clues in on just about all of this, and it does so without being overly schmaltzy about it. John Hughes did a hellva job on this one.
Happy Birthday, Breakfast Club.