Brats

Title: Brats (2024)
Director: Andrew McCarthy
Writer: Andrew McCarthy
Studio: Neon // ABC News Studios

IMDb Plot: Centers on 1980s films starring the ‘Brat Pack’ and their profound impact on the young stars’ lives.

Joe Says: Brats might not be a full-on reunion, but is an entertaining slice of nostalgia.

Brat Pack-er Andrew McCarthy has created an entertaining slice of nostalgia with Brats, a documentary that is part-oral history, part therapy session. Yet instead of creating yet-another “tell-all” or presenting an insider’s chronicle, McCarthy chooses a different rhythm. Through interviews with other Brat Pack-ers or those adjacent, McCarthy discusses what it was like being part of a group he did not ask to join while maneuvering through a life different than the one he had envisioned. Essentially, good old Andrew is talking about what it means to be a Gen-Xer in your fifties.

Welcome to the party, Blane.

Andrew McCarthy and his Gen X anxiety. Photo copyright Disney+/ABC — Andrew McCarthy. Copyright Disney+/ABC.

The Brat Pack moniker was an initially-temporal creation born from a New York Magazine article written by David Blum back in ’85. Blum had spent time with a young, top-of-the-world-ma Emilio Estevez and friends and coined the nickname if only to be pithy. The article came out alongside the Joel Schumacher movie St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) and be it for good or ill, encapsulated those young attractive actors from both St. Elmo’s and the earlier-released John Hughes film The Breakfast Club into one cute, hip clique: the Brat Pack.

For those growing up in the eighties, especially if you were living in suburbia trapped within a churning nuclear family, the Brat Pack was adulated as the Rushmore of social achievement and the epitome of teenaged desire.

But Andrew McCarthy did not see it that way.

For McCarthy, the Brat Pack was a reputation ruiner. More devastating than losing his table at Spago, he was now an acid-washed jean wearing Sisyphus forever pushing his way up those Hollywood Hills. Some, such as Estevez and Judd Nelson (Nelson was not part of the doc), agreed. These young actors trying to find their way have been branded as… brats. Others, like Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, learned to relish the tag. One could then argue that by doing so, both Lowe and Moore had more “successful” careers in front of the camera than perhaps McCarthy and Nelson.

Brats is McCarthy’s looking back at 35 years and determining if being in the Brat Pack was a good thing for him.

McCarthy hosts the docu interviewing friends and followers, such as current Gen X bandleader Bret Easton Ellis, asking their opinion. They are all older. Perhaps wiser. Some may have even been knocked down a peg or two. McCarthy is greying; Estevez a little heavier. Lea Thompson is thin; Jon Cryer bald. And of course both Lowe and Ally Sheedy still look amazing. Even though McCarthy is questioning throughout, he is still jubilant. He has a smile on his face and a lilt to his voice, especially when seeing past friends and acquaintances from a long-past life, such as Moore and Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton. He is charismatic and whether he wants to or not, he still represents the voice of a specific generation. Even if the kid at the SoCal burger joint isn’t quite sure of who the Brat Pack even are.

That is a question McCarthy continually asks. He even admits to the burger joint kid that his movie really about “trying to find people.”

Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe. Copyright Disney+/ABC — McCarthy and Lowe. Copyright Disney+/ABC

McCarthy debates, he ruminates, and, eventually, begrudgingly, accepts. Especially after meeting the supposed foil of his Hollywood dreams: David Blum.

Throughout the doc, McCarthy keeps things casual. He wants to give his fans access to the Brat Pack, coupled with quick glimpses of their private lives, but also by raising the curtain with his cinematic style and is not afraid to show his lights, camera, and action. Surprisingly, McCarthy still needs to learn to use a GPS while driving. He’s not that old of a dog to be adverse to new tricks.

While Brats is a somewhat self-indulgent, personal introspection, those he interviews do share stories, which are intermixed with archival footage from the likes of Entertainment Tonight or late night talk shows. Brats ends up being about the band, not so much the Gen-X experience. Music and fashion are only quickly touched upon. The racial exclusion of the Pack – all smiling, straight, white kids – receives slightly more attention.

Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore. Copyright Disney+/ABC — McCarthy and Moore, Copyright Disney+/ABC

One of the most revelatory scenes of the movie is when Rob Lowe speaks of the necessity of the Brat Pack. That they were avatars of youth. Being the star of a teen movie in the eighties was not a stigmata. That theirs was a specific, and special, point in time. McCarthy agrees that they were in a moment, “where a seismic shift had just happened and young people had taken over the movies.” But, as a typical, angst-driven Gen X-er, McCarthy (now in his sixth decade) wallows in all the negative complications. Lowe, Sheedy, and the illuminous Moore, do their best to play Ferris Bueller to McCarthy’s Cameron Frye.

Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez. Photo copyright Disney+/ABC — McCarthy, Estevez. Copyright Disney+/ABC

Even if Blum’s article did not have a precise grouping, the stars of those John Hughes and Joel Schumacher and Howie Deutch movies would still be tagged. They would forever be known as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal.

As a Gen-Xer, you knew that you had representation within the Brat Pack.

And yeah, McCarthy, you are part of it.