It's been 30 years since the release of "Brat Pack" movie The Breakfast Club but there's no sign of fans forgetting the landmark film or its stars.
To prove the point, the actresses Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy reminisced about making The Breakfast Club at a special anniversary screening of a fully restored version of the 1985 film on Monday.
To kick-off the South by Southwest film festival screening, the Barton Hills Choir serenaded the audience with a rendition of the movie's theme song Don't You (Forget About Me), originally performed by Scottish band Simple Minds.
The audience at the Paramount Theatre sang along with the children’s choir, then welcomed Ringwald and Sheedy onto the stage for a Q&A session.
Sheedy, who now volunteers as a teacher at LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, said the message of the movie – about five very different high-school pupils who learn that they have more in common than they realised – was a loving one.
“You do matter, we are interested in you and we’re going to tell your story,” she said, adding that she had felt a bit lonely after production of the film wrapped.
The film follows five teenagers who have to spend a Saturday in detention at the fictitious Shermer High School in Illinois. Played by Ringwald, Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson, the pupils aren’t initially friends and come from wildly different groups within the school’s social hierarchy, but become close by the day’s end.
Ringwald said she recently saw the movie with her teenage daughter and was surprised to find that the youngster related most to Hall’s character, Brian Johnson. Nicknamed “the Brain,” Johnson is a straight-A student who, it is revealed, has attempted suicide after failing a simple assignment in woodwork class.
“She felt that I had too many expectations of her,” Ringwald said. “It was this incredible moment where I realised I was the parent.”
Ringwald and Sheedy also spoke of their admiration for the film’s writer and director, John Hughes, who died in 2009.
Hughes fan Beth Gleason, 60, took the day off of work as a pastor at an Austin church to volunteer at the theatre for the screening. She said she watches The Breakfast Club at least once a year. "It took me back," she said as she left the screening.
Mike Firoved, of Irvine, California, said the screening was his favourite event of the film festival, which ends on Friday. He said the movie “can’t help but remind you of your high-school days”. The remastered film is already available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD and is getting a 30th-anniversary cinema release in the United States on March 26.
