St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)

Tagline:
The passion burns deep.

Wide Release Date:
June 28, 1985

Directed by:
Joel Schumacher
Written by:
Joel Schumacher, Carl Kurlander
Produced by:
Lauren Shuler

Starring:
Rob Lowe
Demi Moore
Emilio Estevez
Ally Sheedy
Judd Nelson
Mare Winningham
Andrew McCarthy

PREGAME THOUGHTS

Is this the quintessential Brat Pack movie? Or is that The Breakfast Club? St. Elmo’s Fire sure is jam-packed with these attractive dorks, though. You’ve got Ally Sheedy. What’s-his-name. Rob Lowe sure looks like he’s wearing a lot of makeup…

I don’t know a damn thing about this movie! Maybe I should shut my yap.

THE 500(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Seven members of the Brat Pack have just graduated college! Kirby (Emilio Estevez) is a waiter at St. Elmo’s Bar with a creepy infatuation. Billy (Rob Lowe) plays saxophone in the bar for money and girls and is a fucking loser. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) barely writes for the Washington Post and is cynical and depressed. Jules (Demi Moore) is an international banker with a coke addiction. Alec (Judd Nelson) works for a Republican congressman and has a penchant for promiscuity. Leslie (Ally Sheedy) is a prospective architect who doesn’t want to marry Alec. Wendy (Mare Winningham) is a social worker who is kind of a dork with no discernible personality.

We’re a whole bunch of loveable screwballs!!

What follows is a veritable comedy of errors. Enjoy my long paragraph. Billy drives drunk and nearly kills Wendy. While at the hospital, Kirby talks to his college crush Dale (Andie MacDowell) who works there as an intern. Billy loses the job that Alec helped him get. Alec pressures Leslie into marrying him while admitting to Kevin that he is having sex with other women. Billy crashes at Kirby and Kevin’s apartment to get away from his wife. Wendy admits to Billy that she’s a virgin, and before a sexy time happens she gets self-conscious and wants to remain platonic friends. Jules admits to Leslie that she’s having an affair with her boss. During a show at the bar, Billy sees his wife with another man and starts a fight. Jules insists to Leslie and Wendy that everything is under control with her life even with her affair and her constant spending. Kirby starts working as an assistant for a rich Korean guy and immediately throws a party at his house to impress Dale, who doesn’t show up. Wendy starts a relationship with a man named Howie and brings him to the party. Alec announces loudly to the party that he and Leslie are engaged, which isn’t true and pisses her off. Her hunch about his cheating is correct and the two break up. Billy tries to feel up Jules during a ride home. Kirby stalks Dale at a ski lodge where she and her boyfriend are staying. He kisses her very inappropriately and leaves. After the breakup, Leslie crashes at Kevin/Kirby’s apartment and discovers that Kevin has, like, hundreds of pictures of her. Instead of finding this creepy, she indulges in Kevin’s infatuation with her and they do a fuck. Alec catches them the next morning. Jules loses her job and her money and she barricades herself in her apartment to try to freeze to death near an open window. The rest of the group tries to save her from herself. Alec almost kills Kevin by hanging him over a fire escape. Billy busts into the apartment and makes Jules feel better.

Look, kid. Test your luck in Pretty in Pink next time.

Wendy moves out of her parents’ house. Billy intends to move to New York City. When they say bye to him at the bus station, Leslie tells both Kevin and Alec that she wants to be alone for a little while. Kevin and Alec kiss and make up. Everyone is happy at the end for some reason and, thankfully, the movie is over.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Why I Hated Every Character

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Rob Lowe – The movie begins with Lowe’s character driving drunk and almost killing Mare Winningham’s character. Hilarious, right?! Lowe laughs it off, so we the audience laugh it off, too! Ha ha ha! Never mind the fact that he pretty much date rapes Demi Moore, he also gives Mare Winningham shit for being a virgin and then does her a favor by taking her virginity? Oh, but he plays the saxophone, so that’s cool. The only redeeming action this piece of shit takes is talking Demi Moore out of killing herself by rocking back and forth in a fetal position in front of an open window, and even then it’s all like “hardy har, look how cute I am.” Fuck Rob Lowe.

Yeah, boy! You suck that sax’s dick.

Ally Sheedy – She’s right to avoid marrying Judd Nelson, but she’s a complete doormat whose “hunch” that Nelson is cheating on her with a million different women doesn’t dissuade her completely from moving on. She then uses Andrew McCarthy after he spills his guts to her, only to break his heart a day later. She ain’t no saint. Also, an aspiring architect or graphic designer or whatever? I didn’t see her do one creative thing! Boo, Ally Sheedy. Boo.

Judd Nelson – A young Democratic college student turns into a young Republican within months of leaving college? What kind of asshole is this guy? He obnoxiously persistent in trying to get Sheedy to marry him to the point where he suggests having sex with no protection to get her pregnant. All because he thinks this will automatically cause him to start being faithful? Fuck this scumbag with a capsaicin-laced 16-inch dildo.

Demi Moore – Snort another line of coke, why don’t you, you fucking basket case. The climax of the movie revolves around her trying to commit suicide via freezing to death in her apartment and the rest of the gang trying to help her help herself. Nothing in the movie hints at this particular lead-in to such a desperate action on her part, except maybe getting extremely sexually harassed by Rob Lowe and maybe, maybe, losing a job she barely had in the first place. Nobody cares, Demi Moore.

Mare Winningham – Portrayed as fat and ugly when she is neither fat nor particularly ugly, she dresses like a grandma and wears a girdle. Winningham is hopelessly in love with Rob Lowe even though he’s a completely sleazy pretty boy who almost drunk-drove her into oblivion. Lowe pops her cherry, which I think was supposed to be this heartwarming gesture but it made me sick to my stomach. It’s a wonder why anyone else in the clique even liked her in the first place. What a fucking loser.

How did the chick with the glasses get here?

Andrew McCarthy – Easily the most sympathetic of all the characters, which is saying a lot because he’s a tiresome cynic who spends half the movie whining about love and then the other half of the movie boning Ally Sheedy and getting dumped immediately after. He’s a creep who has a million photos of Sheedy in his apartment, which she finds charming? Go jump in a lake, McCarthy.

Emilio Estevez – I saved the worst for last, of course, because Estevez is such an utterly batshit psychopath that he’s stalking a woman he went out on one date with years ago. It obviously didn’t go well, and Andie MacDowell spends the majority of her screen time being impossibly nice and patient with him. At one point, Estevez follows her to a fancy party and declares his obsession to her, soaking wet from the rain and looking like a deranged baboon. Following this, MacDowell invites him back to her apartment to explain to him why she shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. You know, instead of immediately getting a restraining order. And before he inappropriately bends MacDowell over and kisses her while her boyfriend is away for two minutes, she says the following to him. This crazed lunatic. “I don’t really know you that well, but you seem like a fine person, and I want you to know that I’m flattered by all this. Deep down, I’m sure for a long time I’ll wonder if somehow, this isn’t my loss.” It’s beyond unbelievable. What horrible writing. What a terrible side plot. I’m going to go hang a picture of Estevez on my wall and punch a hole through it.

TOPIC 2 — General Movie Thoughts

This movie was a turd. I understand the premise that life after college isn’t all roses and pudding and gloryholes anymore, and that the slow disillusionment that creeps up on college graduates is relatable, but this movie doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to be about that at all. It’s about a bunch of self-centered, obnoxious pricks being completely unlikeable jerks to one another. It’s about creepy infatuations and acting on completely unhealthy impulses. It’s about Rob Lowe with a fucking saxophone. This movie had potential, but that required likeable characters who actually seemed like they all enjoyed each other’s company back in college. Everyone’s relationship with one another is a complete train wreck, indicating to me that it was somewhat of a train wreck in college too, and that these people are toxic to one another.

I can’t reiterate enough how grotesque the Emilio Estevez subplot is. He basically molests Andie MacDowell and then drives off triumphantly. Are we, as an audience, supposed to side with this “nice guy” archetype? Are we supposed to pump our fists in the air along with him? Are we supposed to treat this as a lesson, that it’s ok to force kisses on our crushes who are clearly not interested?? Not cool, man.

Andie MacDowell’s skin will be perfect for my collection.

Seeing everyone’s lives fall apart within the course of a few days is funny, though! That’s all I got out of it.

I don’t have any other general movie thoughts. Ally Sheedy is cute.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Much like her character, Demi Moore (Jules) had a drug problem when she was cast in the film. One day, director Joel Schumacher actually demanded that she leave the set because she was really high. Moore had to go through rehab and promise to stay clean in order to play a character with a drug problem.
A lot was on the line here, because Demi Moore’s involvement in St. Elmo’s Fire would have made or broken the movie completely! Remember that scene where she did the thing? Neither do I.

The interchanges between Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) and the hooker were based on a conversation between a hooker and a limo driver that Joel Schumacher had once overheard.
Yeah. Sure. A hooker and a “limo driver”. “Overheard”. How much did that “conversation” cost you, Schumacher?

Joel Schumacher originally had felt that Rob Lowe wasn’t right for the part of Billy. Only after repeated phone calls from his agent and a passionate speech about why he wanted the part did Rob eventually get it.
You’re going to tease me with a reference to a passionate speech and not even give me a transcription? “Mr. Lowe is dedicated to the craft of acting, looks as pretty as a sunrise, and can hold a saxophone with unparalleled aplomb.” That’s just one sentence out of 750.

Plus, the dude looks great sopping wet. Hubba hubba.

Columbia Pictures hated the title, going so far as to send a 35-page memo listing all of their issues with the proposed title and suggesting such alternatives as The Real World and Sparks.
Now this sounds like fodder for a passionate speech! Let me see if I can summarize the memo:

“St.”? why that could be confused with “street.”
“Elmo’s”? Nobody likes Elmo! The worst Muppet!
“Fire”? You’re fired! Fuck you!

Playing roommates in the movie, actors Emilio Estevez (Kirby Keger) and Andrew McCarthy (Kevin Dolenz) roomed together to prepare for their roles in the film.
They jerked each other off, too.