Saint Elmo's Fire
(1985)
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Seven friends, fresh out of Georgetown University, cope with the fears and realities of adulthood while drinking at their favourite hangout, St. Elmo's. Alex (Judd Nelson) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy) are career-minded and heading towards marriage. Virginal Wendy (Mare Winningham) only has eyes for wild, would-be rocker Billy (Rob Lowe)--whose wife and child don't prevent him from trying to relive his college days. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) ponders the meaning of life and secretly desires Leslie, while his roommate Kirbo (Estevez) pursues an elusive older woman (Andie MacDowell). Jules (Demi Moore) rounds out the group with her massive debts and cocaine problem. Joel Schumacher's twentysomething ensemble piece stands, for better or worse, as a revealing peek into the popular cinema--and values--of the 1980s. The film also represented a graduation of sorts, as Estevez, Sheedy, and Nelson portrayed high school students in John Hughes's THE BREAKFAST CLUB earlier in 1985. |
A Brat Pack movie that most of the cast would probably like to forget, this is now a great example of the excesses of the 1980s and a reminder to young actors that it can all go horribly wrong or — in the case of Demi Moore and Mare Winningham for a short time — wonderfully right. Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson — all of whose careers have never been the same again — are the college pals trying to make their way in the world while wrestling with problems like drug abuse, a teenage marriage, unrequited love and hidden sexuality. Directed by Batman and Robin's Joel Schumacher, this is glossy and glib like so much else from the decade it represents, but it's also a fascinating record of what that generation was watching, wearing and listening to.