The teenage years are plenty tough on everyone--the kids themselves and their parents--and it`s mostly biology`s fault. However, one of the toughest problems for young people in high school is of their own making. It`s the way kids brand each other and themselves as this or that type of person--he`s a jock, she`s a princess, he`s a brain, and never the trio shall meet.
This cliquishness has been going on for a long, long time, and it is a subject common, in part, to some of the very best teenage movies, including
''Rebel Without a Cause'' and ''American Graffiti.'' And now you can add to that list ''The Breakfast Club,'' written and directed by Chicagoan John Hughes, who--based on this and his last picture, ''Sixteen Candles''--is proving to be a savvy chronicler of contemporary teenage life.
''The Breakfast Club,'' the New Trier High School nickname for its early morning detention hall, follows five such stigmatized students as they spend one long day in detention under the direction of an autocratic teacher.
The three boys are a punk (Judd Nelson), a jock (Emilio Estevez from
''Repo Man'') and a brain (Anthony Michael Hall from ''Sixteen Candles''). The two girls are a princess (Molly Ringwald from ''Sixteen Candles'') and a withdrawn, pathological liar (Ally Sheedy from ''WarGames'').
The entire movie consists mostly of the five students talking and not talking to each other inside a huge library that serves as the school`s Saturday detention hall. (The movie was filmed on a library set built inside the gymnasium of vacant Maine North High School.) By the end of the day, each has confessed a secret and each has begun to realize that the differences that separate them may not be so great after all.
This confessional formula has worked in films as different as ''Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,'' ''The Big Chill'' and ''My Dinner with Andre,''
and it works here too. It works especially well in ''The Breakfast Club''
because we keep waiting for the film to break out of its claustrophobic set and give us a typical teenage movie sex-or-violence scene. That doesn`t happen, much to our delight.
The writing of ''The Breakfast Club'' is less sophisticated and more obvious than that of those other three ''confessional'' films. And although that may be appropriate given the age of the characters involved, you`ll still wince once or twice when the actors seem to be reciting set speeches rather than overlapping dialog. But that quibble aside, ''The Breakfast Club'' is a breath of cinematic fresh air, taking on a very real adolescent problem and offering, in a dramatic way, a possible solution.
The film is at its very best when the brainy kid wonders out loud toward the end of the film whether any of his new-found friends will still be his friends come Monday morning. It`s a very real question, such being the impulse to conform in high school. A simple ''hello'' between a jock and a wimp in a crowd is a big risk for both of them.
Credit writer-director Hughes for remembering his adolescence well. Most filmmakers these days remember only the surface details of their teenage years --the songs, the cars and the clothes. But Hughes remembers the hurts.
He also has cast his film well, even though I would have found the story more credible if the two actresses had traded characters. To my mind, Sheedy, being prettier than Ringwald, would be more convincing as the popular, rich girl. The boys, however, are all first rate. Estevez is particularly charismatic in the role of the jock, hitting just the right mixture of pride and doubt. Hall, who played the ''geek'' in ''Sixteen Candles,'' is just fine as sort of an adolescent Woody Allen. And Nelson is excellent in the film`s biggest role, effectively turning a boor into a tragic character.
''The Breakfast Club,'' does contain a couple of laughs, but at its core it`s a thoroughly serious picture. It will be interesting to follow its success at the box office. If it fails, the state of teenage movies will be even more bleak than it already is.
''THE BREAKFAST CLUB'' (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
MINI-REVIEW: GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO
Written and directed by John Hughes; photographed by Thomas Del Ruth;
edited by Dede Allen; music by Keith Forsey; produced by Ned Tanen and John Hughes; a Universal release at the Water Tower and outlying theaters. Rated R. THE CAST
Andrew Clark.... Emilio Estevez
Richard Vernon.. Paul Gleason
Brian Johnson... Anthony Michael Hall
Carl.... John Kapelos
John Bender..... Judd Nelson
Claire Nelson... Molly Ringwald
Allison Reynolds........ Ally Sheedy
