Brats

I find the idea of events that have unique perspectives shared by only a small, select group of people fascinating. For instance, there are many, many hugely successful music bands out there. Groups like The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Metallica, and so many more have sold millions upon millions of albums, sold out stadiums around the world, and have their names etched in the memories of fans and non-fans alike ... but none of them have the same experience as The Beatles. Their experience in music as a band is singular. Only those four men ever knew what Beatlemania was like from the inside looking out. The Brat Pack is much the same way. Setting aside that the group was fictitious and only labeled so by some writer, and also setting aside that the "official" "membership" is nebulous at best (something this documentary acknowledges), The Brat Pack was still a unique experience to live through. As this documentary by Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy explores, the sudden rise of these actors represented a shift, in both the industry of Hollywood and pop culture. Teenagers and young people had been a key demographic before, but movies never treated them like people; they were either background noise for adults, reduced to comedic stereotypes (see teen sex comedies and beach party movies), or cannon fodder for some hulking murderous lunatic (slashers). The movies of The Brat Pack popularized movies and TV that treated young people like actual people; it explored their lives, their thoughts, and their feelings. Teenagers and young adults could see themselves reflected on the screen now in ways they could relate to for the first time, and the actors in these movies were at the epicenter. But by being forcibly assembled under a umbrella, the actors found themselves saddled with notoriety and expectations and limitations they didn't plan on. Brats is Andrew McCarthy's attempt to reckon with all of that, reconciling their experience on the inside against what people saw (or were told) from the outside. I saw "attempt" because what the movie ends up being is a guy trying to deal with baggage he didn't need to carry around, and being told by most everyone "dude, get over it". Yes, there is some commiseration from fellow Packers like Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez. They all discuss how the term set an expectation for all of them within Hollywood; entitled party animals, unappreciative malcontents incapable of being anything more than snotty youth. Or, in simpler terms, brats. But the documentary takes a sharp turn when he starts talking to people outside of the Pack, and when he talks to fellow member Demi Moore. The former -- journalists, critics, other actors in his peer group (Lea Thompson and Jon Cryer) -- tell Andrew how the Brat Pack represented cool and opportunity and busting down doors, and how the group represents a moment in time and forever etches their names into cinema immortality. Demi Moore tells him that he let the label define him, when he had the opportunity to rise above. Rob Lowe later opens his eyes to the legacy of the group, and how things like the CW's many teen-centric shows and Glee and so many other youth-culture things wouldn't exist without them. Therein lies Brats' biggest failing. McCarthy has carried around this millstone for 35 years, way longer than seems sensible, and all he's ever done is naval-gaze. He comes off as an unsympathetic, bitter has-been. When Demi Moore tells him he could've controlled the narrative, she knows from experience; she did. She went on to do many, many successful movies, and was one of the biggest stars of the 90's. Emilio Estevez had a successful career as an actor outside of it, and then pivoted to being a director. Maybe member Anthony Michael Hall (who is totally omitted in this movie) had a successful career, and others in the orbit of the Brat Pack (Tom Cruise, Timothy Hutton, Robert Downey Jr., James Spader, Matthew Broderick, Kevin Bacon, and the list goes on) all have amazing careers. And there are plenty of young actors from the 80's who were in successful movies and didn't amount to anything -- name a cast member from Porky's. Name one movie Joyce Hyser did besides Just One Of The Guys. Ask any B-movie scream queen like Linnea Quigley if she would rather be in your place, Andrew, instead of being topless in every tacky, direct-to-video movie she was in for a decade. By the end, McCarthy, our narrator and guide, looks like a jackass. He was immortalized in a way that, if the label hadn't happened, he would find himself in the class of actors like Lawrence Monoson. McCarthy and the others all explain how the label hurt at the time, but there's no real exploration of how beyond hurt feelings; there's never a moment where any of them say being in the Brat Pack cost them a movie. For McCarthy to still grind that ax three and a half decades later, and then make a movie about it but do nothing to give the audience the view from the inside besides "it hurt my feelings!", is cluelessly narcissistic at best. That's the whole point of this documentary, Andrew: to let us, the viewers, the people who grew up watching you, inside the inner circle. To understand how you felt. Instead, it's 90 minutes of the least important member of the group finding out he was the least important member of the group because he slotted himself there by being a fragile man-child. There's easier ways to get over your perceived trauma, Andrew, and those ways won't force an audience to bear witness. Team Duckie forever.