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After the absolute delights that are Iron Eagle and The Lost Boys, it seems that the ’80s can do no wrong. What a time to be alive, right? Nothing could go wrong, and everything was perfect… except it wasn’t. Unfortunately for all involved, St Elmo’s Fire existed.
The fault for St Elmo’s Fire lies firmly at the door of one man, even though he had nothing to do with the actual movie. That man is John Hughes.
The writer, producer, and director was responsible for creating some movies that seem to have become held to encapsulate the American experience of adolescence as touchstones. Well, now it is time for some real talk:
Ferris Bueller was an asshole, and if you ever found yourself watching The Breakfast Club thinking “Finally! I feel seen!” then you deserve to have grown into the deeply unhappy adult you undoubtedly became. I bet you own cats.
The rest of the world watched these movies and suddenly understood why Americans all seemed to be on medication or in therapy. If the Russians ever thought, in the depths of the Cold War, that this is what the American psyche was really like, they would have fancied their chances, and tanks would have been crossing the Rhine before the end of the closing credits.
Still, for some unknown reason, this type of over-angst-ridden nonsense was big business for a time in the 1980s, and hoping to capitalise on this, into this arena stepped St Elmo’s Fire.
St Elmo’s Whining
There are bad movies, and then there are important bad movies. Films so self-absorbed, so unintentionally hysterical, that they end up defining the very era they tried to capture. St. Elmo’s Fire is one of those.
It was released in 1985 and directed by a pre-The Lost Boys and pre-Batman Joel Schumacher. St. Elmo’s Fire tried to be The Graduate for the MTV generation. What it actually became was a cinematic group therapy session for the emotionally unstable and fashionably confused.
This is a film about the problems of rich, good-looking 22-year-olds, which in 1985 was apparently a crisis of national importance. Imagine The Breakfast Club graduates, but instead of detention, they’re trapped in an eternal brunch and whining about “finding themselves” while wearing shoulder pads large enough to land aircraft on.
If John Hughes really did give the 80s some heart, here Joel Schumacher gave it an aneurysm.
The Plot… Such As It Is
St. Elmo’s Fire plays like seven separate soap operas that got drunk and crashed into each other. We open with a car crash, which, symbolically, is perfect, because the film never recovers from it. From there, we’re introduced to our band of Georgetown graduates, known affectionately at the time as The Brat Pack and a walking, talking example of why everyone over 35 hated the youth.
Each one is a walking midlife crisis waiting to happen, yet despite this seem to possess that unshakeable self-confidence of recent college grads who are yet to realise that they are nothing but debt-ridden trainees at this point.
Rob Lowe plays Billy, the saxophone-toting man-child who still thinks college was five minutes ago. His sax solos are meant to sound passionate, but mostly they sound like a goose being slowly strangled. What the hell was it about these movies and saxophones? Still, he’s less oily than his The Lost Boys peer.
Demi Moore is Jules, a coked-up socialite whose apartment looks like Studio 54 crashed into a Laura Ashley catalog. Her emotional range goes from “tragic sigh” to “melodramatic collapse in designer furniture.”
Emilio Estevez is Kirby, a law student whose major life goal appears to be stalking Andie MacDowell. It’s played as romantic. In 2025, it feels like a restraining order might be required.
Andrew McCarthy is Kevin, a journalist and part-time cynic who looks perpetually hungover on ennui. He’s secretly in love with Ally Sheedy because, of course he is.
Judd Nelson plays Alec, a liberal college kid turned Republican who cheats on his girlfriend while lecturing everyone else on values.
Ally Sheedy plays Leslie, whose sole job appears to be to make Alec look less awful by comparison.
Mare Winningham is Wendy, the sweet, sensible virgin that everyone forgets about until she cries or donates furniture.
They hang out at a bar called St. Elmo’s, and every conversation they have is about how life after college is so hard. Rent! Responsibility! It’s all so unfair! This gives us a chance to begin to mutter angrily at these assholes. This won’t be the last time.
Studies In Overacting
The real miracle of St. Elmo’s Fire is how it takes seven reasonably talented actors and makes them all look like they’re auditioning for Days of Our Lives: The Movie.
Rob Lowe spends the entire runtime squinting, sweating, and blowing that sax like he owes it money. Demi Moore delivers every line like she’s auditioning for a perfume commercial about loneliness. Estevez’s “romantic” obsession with MacDowell plays out like something you’d report to campus security.
Judd Nelson, having seemingly just discovered poser suits, gives motivational speeches about growing up that sound like they were written by a self-help app.
Andrew McCarthy? His main skill here is looking pained in soft lighting while muttering about love and betrayal, like a 22-year-old Hemingway. The only one who seems remotely human is Mare Winningham, but that’s probably because the script forgets to give her anything stupid to say for long stretches.
Overwritten and Under-Delivered
If Aaron Sorkin wrote for Tiger Beat, this is what it would sound like. Every line is a desperate attempt at profundity, the cinematic equivalent of a teenager quoting Kierkegaard on prom night, with such zingers as:
“We’re all going through this together, aren’t we?”
Yes. Unfortunately, so are the audience.
Schumacher and co-writer Carl Kurlander apparently thought they were writing something universal about post-college disillusionment. What they wrote instead was an expensive therapy session for people whose biggest trauma was realizing brunch isn’t a career.
Joel Schumacher once described St. Elmo’s Fire as “a movie about the pain of growing up.” It’s really about the pain of watching people pretend to grow up while power ballads play.
It’s got everything a 1980s studio executive thought depth looked like: tearful confrontations, pastel lighting, saxophones, and montages where people look out windows while thinking about love. It’s so glossy you could see your reflection in it.
There’s a certain joy in watching a movie that takes itself this seriously while being so fundamentally ridiculous.
There’s Demi Moore’s iconic meltdown scene, where she sits in her wind-tunnel apartment sobbing next to an open window, curtains flapping, while Rob Lowe gives her a pep talk that sounds like Bon Jovi lyrics.
There’s Estevez chasing Andie MacDowell through the snow like a lovesick maniac while the signature song of the movie blares out about three sound levels too high. There’s Rob Lowe’s sax solo played with all the sensuality of a man trying to seduce his own reflection.
And then there’s that ending, where everyone decides that, sure, adulthood’s tough, but maybe they’ll all just meet at a different bar instead. Such growth!
Soundtracks & Saxophones
Pretty much all of us agreed that the entire soundtrack to The Lost Boys was awesome. Well, the soundtrack to St Elmo’s Fire has but one famous track – John Parr’s Man in Motion.
Now the unofficial anthem of every ’80s montage about overcoming mild inconvenience, this film treats the song like it’s Bohemian Rhapsody. It plays over everything: emotional breakthroughs, car rides, somebody eating cereal. By the end, you’ll have Stockholm syndrome.
The saxophone, meanwhile, is practically a character. It’s the movie’s Greek chorus, ringing out from the soundtrack every time someone feels something vaguely emotional. You half-expect the sax to get its own closing credit.
Legacy & Laughability
St. Elmo’s Fire was meant to be a portrait of young adulthood in the Reagan era. Instead, it’s a cautionary tale about what happens when you mistake mood lighting for maturity.
It tried to capture the zeitgeist and ended up bottling narcissism. Every character is convinced they’re the hero of their own movie which, ironically, makes them perfect avatars for the Instagram generation.
Revisiting it now is like unearthing a time capsule full of hair mousse, synth-pop, and bad decisions. You don’t hate it so much as you marvel that anyone thought this was profound.
It is overwrought, self-important, and unintentionally hilarious, the cinematic equivalent of a drunk toast at a college reunion that just won’t end. It’s not a coming-of-age movie so much as a stalling-of-age movie. Nobody learns anything. Nobody grows. They just keep emoting until the saxophone says it’s time to go home.
Watch it if you love neon nostalgia, or if you’re hosting an ’80s-themed party and need something pretty to play in the background. Otherwise, skip it.
Schumacher allegedly told the cast to “feel every line like your life depends on it.” Mission accomplished — they all look like they’re dying inside.
Rob Lowe actually learned saxophone for the film. Unfortunately, so did we. Andrew McCarthy called the movie “emotionally dishonest.” This is coming from a man who made Weekend at Bernie’s.
The script’s original ending had the gang splitting apart for good. Test audiences hated it, so they slapped on a cheerful reunion scene. Because nothing says “emotional growth” like meeting for brunch.
In the end, St. Elmo’s Fire isn’t a movie. It is everything wrong with the genre distilled into a single occurrence. It’s a mood board of bad decisions. It’s the cinematic hangover after The Breakfast Club, where everyone realizes that adulthood isn’t that deep, it’s just expensive.
It’s overwrought, childish, and very, very funny, just not on purpose. So raise a glass to the Brat Pack, those beautiful idiots. They set the world on fire… and then complained about the smoke.
This movie is what happens when The Lost Boys grow up and just become The Lost Young Adults.
The post Retro Review: ST ELMO’S FIRE (1985) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
