Sincerely Yours (2008 Video) User Reviews

Revisiting The Breakfast Club

[Michael_Elliott · 20 February 2018]

Sincerely Yours (2008)

*** (out of 4)

Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, John Kapelos and Ally Sheedy discuss the making of and impact that THE BREAKFAST CLUB had on people. Also interviewed are fans and critics including Amy Heckerling, Diablo Cody and Owen Gleiberman. For the most part this is a very entertaining documentary but I think the highlights are when the actual cast members are discussing the production of the movie as well as telling stories that happened behind-the-scenes. There are some great stories with the cast members talking about working with the director and various changes that were made to the script. It was fascinating getting to hear them talk about their characters, their motivations as well as their thoughts on why the film has lasted as long as it has. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking with this documentary and especially since it is missing several key cast members but it's still very entertaining for what it is.

An excellent and illuminating retrospective documentary

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 28 March 2018]

This 52-minute long documentary covers a lot of interesting ground on the making of the landmark teen classic "The Breakfast Club" by John Hughes. Ally Sheedy reveals that she was just like her character Allison in high school and found the David Bowie quote used at the start of the movie. Judd Nelson talks about how he went into his audition totally in character as the surly Bender. John Kapelos admits that he kept away from the other cast members and even slept in the janitor's closet. Costume designer Marilyn Vance goes into detail on how she came up with clothes to define each character. We also learn a lot about writer/director John Hughes:: Since Hughes in a sense never completely grew up he still had a firm grasp on adolescence and a great ear for the way kids actually talk (for example, he often made up the teen slang heard in his films), he wrote the first draft of the script over a weekend, allowed all the cast members to have five or six takes, and encouraged his young cast do improvise all the time during the shooting of the movie . Anthony Michael Hall astutely notes that the key reason "The Breakfast Club" holds up so well is because of how it cleverly deconstructs teen stereotypes while writer Diablo Cody cites that Hughes was the rare filmmaker who took teenagers and their problems seriously. Recommended viewing for fans of the film.