Summary
While Claire sobs, the others sit in silence. With resignation, Andrew asks if they’re going to end up like their parents. Claire says she never will. Allison says, “It’s unavoidable. It just happens. When you grow up, your heart dies.” Bender says who cares. Allison says she cares. Brian asks what’s going to happen on Monday when they’re all together again. He wants to know if they’ll still be friends on Monday. Claire asks if he wants the truth. He says he does. Claire says she doesn’t think so.
Claire asks Andrew to picture Brian coming up to him in the hall when he’s with his friends. Bender shouts that Claire is a bitch. Claire calls him a hypocrite, saying that Bender’s friends would laugh at him if he walked down the hall with her; he’d probably then tell them he’s sleeping with her to get them off his back. Bender tells her to leave his friends out of it. Claire says she hates him. Bender says good.
Brian says, “Then I assume Allison and I are better people than you, huh? Us weirdos.” Allison confirms she wouldn’t ignore Brian if he came up to her in the halls at school. Brian says he’d never try to humiliate any of them by ignoring them in front of his friends, because he thinks it’s really shitty. Claire says it’s different because his friends look up to them.
Brian tells Claire she’s so conceited. He asks why she’s like that. Claire says she hates having to go along with everything her friends say. Brian asks why she does it. Claire says Brian doesn’t know the kind of pressure friends like those Claire and Andrew have can put on you. Brian cries, admitting he’s there today because Mr. Ryan found a gun in his locker. Andrew asks what the gun was for. Brian says he can’t have an F: even if he aced the rest of the semester, he’d have a B average.
Claire tells him that killing himself isn’t an option. Brian says he didn’t. Allison asks if it was a handgun. Brian says it was a flare gun, and it went off in his locker. Andrew laughs. Brian says it isn’t funny, but then smiles. The others laugh. He admits it is funny, and the “fucking elephant was destroyed.” Allison says she didn’t do anything to get detention, she just didn’t have anything better to do.
Brian puts music on over the school PA system while the others dance around the library in unique ways. Brian joins in with his own peculiar dancing. After the music montage ends, Bender is creeping through the air duct system again. The other four sit together. Claire asks Brian to write an essay for all of them because he’s the smartest. Claire and Allison look at each other before Claire pulls her away to redo her makeup. She says Allison looks a lot better without “all that black shit” on her face. Allison asks why she’s being so nice to her. Claire says, “Because you’re letting me.”
Claire joins Bender in the storeroom, which he has snuck back into. He asks if she is lost. They share a smile. Meanwhile, Andrew perks up when he sees Allison. Her gothic look is gone, and she wears a pink dress. A hairband keeps her fringe out of her eyes. Andrew and Allison stare at each other as they walk toward each other. Brian stares at Allison. She thanks him. In the storeroom, Claire gently kisses Bender’s collar. He cites what she said earlier about how her parents use her to get back at each other; he says that he would be an excellent person to use if she wanted to do the same to them.
Andrew asks Allison what happened to her. She becomes defensive and asks why. Andrew says it’s different: he can see her face. She asks if that’s good or bad. He says good. The students walk down the hall together. They pass Carl, who smiles. Bender says he’ll see him next Saturday. In the parking lot, Brian is picked up by his father. Andrew and Allison kiss. She tears a patch off his letterman jacket and walks to her parent’s car. Andrew’s dad picks him up, glancing at his new girlfriend. Claire puts her diamond earring in Bender’s hand. He leans in to kiss her, which she ducks away from and gets into her parent’s car. Bender watches her drive away and puts the earring in his earlobe.
The scene cuts to Vernon reading the essay Brian wrote. Brian’s voiceover accompanies the image. Brian explains that they accept the fact of their detention, but they think it’s crazy to be made to write an essay. He says that Vernon sees them in the simplest terms, but they’ve found out that each one of them is “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” He ends the essay with: “Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.”
The final shot of the film shows Bender walking across the football field as the sun sets in the background. He raises his fist triumphantly and the frame freezes. The end credits roll.
Analysis
Hughes continues building on the theme of family dysfunction with Andrew’s and Allison’s grim observations that they will inevitably grow up to be just as unfeeling and neglectful as their parents. The theme of emotional repression returns with Allison’s comment that one’s “heart dies” upon reaching adulthood. By this, she suggests that teenagers have more intense relationships with their emotions, while adults have learned to repress their emotions until they no longer feel anything.
The theme of social division returns when Brian introduces the topic of what will happen to their group when regular life resumes on Monday. Claire admits she doesn’t believe the camaraderie they have established during detention is enough to overcome the social divisions that keep them in segregated cliques at school. When Bender attacks her, she points out his hypocrisy, suggesting that he is just as bound by his friends’ superficial judgments as she is in hers. Hughes builds on the theme of resentment when Brian accuses Claire of being conceited and points out the irony of weirdos like him and Allison being more moral people than the supposedly admirable popular kids. Claire’s only defense for her conceitedness is that with social divisions comes immense pressure to conform.
The implication that Brian doesn’t know about the pressure she faces prompts Brian to sob and reveal he too feels overwhelmed. Explaining more about the elephant lamp fiasco, Brian confesses that his failing grade was enough to make him consider suicide. He went as far as bringing a flare gun to school. In an instance of situational irony, the flare gun discharged in his locker before he had a chance to use it; this was how he wound up in detention. Hughes once again balances the drama of the film with comedy, showing Brian shift from despair to amusement as he admits it is funny to think about how things transpired for him. With this confession, Hughes shows that even a superficially well-adjusted star student can be overwhelmed by the pressure to conform to who others expect him to be.
Lightening the heavy mood of the film, Hughes cuts to a scene in which Brian and the other students loosen up by dancing to music. As if cleansing themselves of the emotional burdens they have just confessed to, the students let loose, dancing in a peculiar but freeing manner. As a symbolic act to show she is trying to be less invested in arbitrary social divisions, Claire gives Allison a makeover that reveals the beauty Allison has been concealing behind her messy hair and goth makeup. While the gesture might come off as condescending, Allison appreciates the attention and is surprised that Claire is being so nice to her.
Hughes continues building on the theme of bonding when Claire goes to Bender, who has returned to his storage closet. Saying that she knows Bender wouldn’t make the first move herself, Claire kisses his collar, initiating a relationship with him; she further cements the bond by giving him one of her diamond earrings to wear. Simultaneously, Allison and Andrew confirm the attraction that has been building throughout the film, irresistibly drawn to each other following Allison’s makeover. With these relationships, Hughes emphasizes the students’ newfound ability to see beyond superficial division and connect on a genuine emotional level.
In contrast to the film’s opening shots, which showed the students arriving at detention separately, Hughes shows the students leaving the detention room as a group. To further emphasize the group’s bond, Hughes plays a voiceover of Brian’s essay, which he wrote on behalf of “The Breakfast Club.” Rejecting the premise of Vernon’s essay, Brian implies that the students no longer consider themselves to be the stereotypes Vernon sees them as. Instead, they see themselves represented in each other, and identify collectively as being each “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” In this way, Brian implies that they have realized they each identify with elements of who each other is, having seen beyond their stereotypes to discover hidden depths and shared qualities. Rather than explain this deeper meaning to Vernon, who only lost their respect as the day went on, the once-compliant Brian rebels by cryptically hinting at the group’s newfound solidarity.
