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Back in the 80's - when the modern American teenager was considered a subspecies impenetrable to the average adult - John Hughes was the pied piper of suburbia. There was nowhere he could go where teenagers wouldn't follow. And for a brief, shining moment in 1985, he was on top of the world - Sixteen Candles arrived the year before and had redefined the teen pic genre, The Breakfast Club was racking up grosses exceeding $60 million, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off - still the young auteur's crowning achievement - was only a year away. When the pain of high school-dom was too much, when there was no one around to help stifle the sobs, John Hughes understood. His films were the voice of a generation.

The Breakfast Club is Hughes' darkest, most serious look at the teenage condition. A day in the life of five misfits of different social classes and cliches - the jock, the rebel, the recluse, the geek, the rich girl - it's group therapy by way of high school detention. The stages are predictable - early morning hours filled with insults, tenuous glances and insecure posturing, followed by revelations, bonding and the inevitable mating rituals. It's a great teen melodrama that is also a microcosm for bourgeois middle America, all under the thumb of a tyrannical principal... with a little bit of Mr. Miyagi-like mysticism by way of the friendly high school janitor.

Let me risk being called a heretic by saying that The Breakfast Club isn't really a great movie. It is sometimes plodding, sometimes touchy-feely, sometimes pretentious. But it so perfectly encapsulates an entire generation that it doesn't matter. It remains fascinating purely as a cultural artifact. The clothes and the music may have changed, but the five young protagonists are pure archetype and Hughes knows exactly what buttons to push. The basic insecurities, tensions, fears and dreams at play don't seem to have changed one iota in almost two decades. Ain't it a bitch being a teenager?

That The Breakfast Club is one of the most perceptive and thoughtful teen flicks ever goes without saying. Much has been made in subsequent years of the demise of "The Brat Pack" - critics seem to have delighted in the perceived career downfall of the five fine actors here - so let this Blu-ray be a testament to the talents of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez. I'm sure they are now a Trivial Pursuit question because of this movie, but then they turned Kevin Bacon into a game, too, and hasn't he gotten the last laugh? I don't know what happened to John Hughes, either, but for one brief, shining moment, he so pierced the impenetrable surface of the teenage psyche that maybe once was enough.

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