St. Elmo's Fire is a 1985 American coming-of-age film co-written and directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andie MacDowell and Mare Winningham. It centres on a clique of recent graduates of Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University, and their adjustment to post-university life and the responsibilities of adulthood. The film is a prominent movie of the Brat Packgenre. It received negative reviews from critics but was a box office hit grossing $37.8 million on a $10 million budget.
Plot:
Recent Georgetown University graduates Alec, his girlfriend Leslie, Kevin, Jules, and Kirby are waiting to hear about the conditions of their friends, Wendy, a sweet-natured girl devoted to helping others, and Billy, a former fraternity boy and now reluctant husband and father, after a minor car accident caused by Billy's drinking. At the hospital, Kirby spots a medical student named Dale, with whom he has been infatuated since college.
The group gathers at their favorite college hangout, St. Elmo's Bar. Billy, trapped in an unstable marriage, has been fired from the job that Alec helped him secure. At their apartment, Alec pressures Leslie to marry him, but she thinks they are unprepared to make such a commitment. Kirby is telling Kevin of his love for Dale when Billy shows up, asking to spend the night as he cannot cope with his wife. Jules accuses Kevin of being gay and loving Alec. When Kevin visits Alec and Leslie for dinner, Alec, during a private moment with Kevin, confesses he recently had sex with a lingerie saleswoman.
Billy and Wendy get drunk together, and Wendy reveals that she's a virgin. They kiss, and Billy, tugging at her clothing, makes fun of her girdle. Wendy insists they just remain friends because she thinks that he's trying to take advantage of her. At St. Elmo's, Jules reveals to Leslie she is having an affair with her married boss. Billy sees his wife with another man in the crowd and attacks him. Billy is jettisoned from the bar but reconciles with his wife. The girls confront Jules about her affair and reckless spending, but she insists that everything is under control.
Kirby takes a job working for Mr. Kim, a wealthy Korean businessman, and invites Dale to a party that he's holding at Mr. Kim's house (which he is using without Mr. Kim's permission). Wendy arrives with Howie, an ungainly Jewish boy whom her parents want her to marry. Alec announces that he and Leslie are engaged, upsetting her. She confronts him about her suspicions of his infidelity, and the two break up. Alec accuses Kevin of telling Leslie about the tryst with the lingerie woman. Jules gives Billy a ride home, and Billy makes a pass at her. Furious, Jules orders him out of her car, and Billy's wife witnesses the confrontation.
When Dale skips the party, Kirby drives to the ski lodge where she is staying and meets her tall, handsome boyfriend. Kirby's borrowed car gets stuck, and Dale and her boyfriend invite him in. The next morning, as Kirby prepares to leave the lodge, Dale tells him that she's flattered by his interest in her. He kisses her, and then poses for a photo with her (taken by her boyfriend) before leaving. Dale watches Kirby as he drives off.
Leslie goes to Kevin's apartment to spend the night after the breakup and discovers photographs of her. Kevin confesses his love for her, and the two sleep together. Alec goes to the apartment to apologize to Kevin and finds Leslie there, and then Alec and Leslie argue.
Wendy tells her father that she wants to be independent and move into her own place. Jules has been fired from her job, fallen behind on her credit card payments, and her possessions have been seized. Jules locks herself in her apartment and opens the windows, intending to freeze to death. Her friends attempt to coax her out, but she is unresponsive. Kirby fetches Billy, who landed a job at a gas station courtesy of Kevin, to calm Jules down. Billy convinces Jules to let him in, and the two share a very tender talk about the challenges of life, overheard by the rest of the gang.
Wendy moves into her own place, where Billy visits and informs her that he is getting a divorce and moving to New York City, and the two have sex. At the bus station, the group gathers once more to say goodbye to Billy. Billy urges Alec to make up with Leslie, but she declares that she does not want to date anyone for a while. Alec and Kevin make up, and the group makes plans to meet for brunch. However, they decide not to go to St. Elmo's and instead choose Houlihan's because there are "not so many kids" there.
Production
Development:
The film was announced in July 1984. It was executive produced by Ned Tanen. Tanen also produced The Breakfast Club and it and St. Elmo's Fire were dubbed "The Little Chills", in reference to the film The Big Chill. "These are both movies that no one has ever seen before," said Tanen.
Casting:
According to Schumacher, "a lot of people turned down the script...the head of one major studio called its seven-member cast "the most loathsome humans he had ever read on the page." The producers interviewed "hundreds of people" for the cast, including Anthony Edwards and Lea Thompson. According to Lauren Shuler Donner, she found Estevez, Nelson, and Sheedy through recommendations from John Hughes, who had cast them in The Breakfast Club; Schumacher said he had to "push hard" to get the studio to agree to cast the three. Demi Moore had to go to rehab before shooting.
"I think there are people who go to college because it's kind of what's accepted," said Lowe. "I feel unfortunately sometimes it's used as a holding tank, waiting to go into the real world, instead of for education. I think there are people who can go into the marketplace after high school and do well."
"I think I'm probably going to be criticized a lot," said Nelson. "My character is very straight, very conservative, very career-oriented. After Breakfast Club, I think people will say I should have played another street punk. They'll criticize me for not doing what I'm good at, for trying something new."
"It's refreshing to play someone who isn't defined by who her boyfriend is or what her body looks like," said Sheedy.
"I did feel a little like the new kid in class," said Moore.
Filming:
Principal photography began early October 1984, just after executive producer Ned Tanen had been appointed as president of Paramount Pictures' motion picture division.
The private Catholic, Jesuit Georgetown University would not permit filming on campus, with their administrators citing questionable content such as premarital sex. As a result, the university seen on film is the public University of Maryland located 10 miles away in College Park, Maryland.
"I loved wearing the clothes," said Moore, "I've always been such a tom boy."
Soundtrack:
It was the first soundtrack written by Canadian composer/producer David Foster. "When I was writing the score to St. Elmo's Fire, I loved it," he said. "But for that month and a half or so that I had to write the songs, it just felt like doing my regular job."
The theme song "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" was written by Foster and English musician John Parr, and also performed by Parr. Foster had been impressed by Parr's song "Naughty Naughty" and invited him to perform the title track. Originally another song was chosen which Parr disliked. "That song sounded like `Fame II' or "Flashdance II," said Parr later. "I thought the movie was supposed to have more class than that. It was a regurgitated song and I didn't really want to sing it."
Parr urged Foster to try another song. They wrote it together, "very fast, between 2 and 4 on Friday afternoon," Parr recalled. "We wrote it together, with David sitting at the piano." Schumacher had given Parr rough guidelines for the lyrics. "He wanted a song about determination," Parr recalled. "He wanted a song about kids who are growing up and have to make decisions about what to do with their lives. That's what the movie is about." Schumacher told them not to use "St Elmo's Fire" in the lyrics but Parr did it regardless. "I thought it fit in the song," he said. "In the movie, St. Elmo's is a bar. But to me St. Elmo's Fire is a magical thing glowing in the sky that holds destiny to someone. It's mystical and sacred. It's where paradise lies, like the end of the rainbow."
Parr was inspired to write the lyrics not by the movie (which he had not seen) but by the Canadian athlete Rick Hansen who, at the time, was traveling around the world via his wheelchair to raise awareness for spinal cord injuries, a trip called the "Man in Motion Tour." The song did not appear on any Parr album until Letter to America was released in July 2011.
The song "Give Her a Little Drop More", which plays during the movie when the characters enter St. Elmo's Bar & Restaurant, was written by British jazz trumpeter John Chilton.
"St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for two weeks in September 1985, and "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" (the instrumental theme to the movie by David Foster) reached No. 15. Another version of the "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" with lyrics, titled "For Just a Moment", was performed by Amy Holland and Donny Gerrard, and was included as the final song on the soundtrack album.
Release/Reception/Box Office:
David Denby called Schumacher "brutally untalented" and said that "nobody over the moral age of fifteen" will like the work of the Brat Pack actors in the film.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 43% rating, with 19 positive reviews out of 44. The site's critical consensus reads: "St. Elmo's Fire is almost peak Brat Pack: it's got the cast, the fashion, and the music, but the characters are too frequently unlikable." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 35 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics.
In a 2015 retrospective review, Justin Gerber of Consequence of Sound said that he was "prepared to say it’s the worst movie of all time, with all the necessary stipulations lined up and accounted for," going on to criticize the characters, plot, set, direction, and even score.
The film opened strongly, earning $6.1 million in its first week.
The film ended up making $37.8 million. It outperformed other Columbia disappointments that year including Silverado, The Bride and Perfect.
My Review:
Someone has called this the ultimate Brat Pack movie and while I gladly will accept all nominations for rivals, this will do until someone suggests a better one.
St. Elmo's Fire centres on the lives and loves of seven 20 something college graduates from the Georgetown, Maryland suburb of Washington, DC. They're all starting out with careers of some kind, but they're also looking for THE career move and the move to a real life partner.
They run quite a gamut from Judd Nelson an aide to a Congressman to Rob Lowe who bounces from job to job and who really just wants to play his saxophone. The women are an assorted lot as well from hedonistic Demi Moore to virginal Mare Winningham with Ally Sheedy in the middle. We can't forget Emilio Estevez as the law student who works at St. Elmo's bar where they all hang out and Andrew McCarthy the cynical writer who's about to become a victim of what he doesn't believe in, committed love. Except for Winningham, they seem to have all hooked up with each other at one time or other and she's saving herself for the irresponsible Lowe. When you see the stiff her rich parents, Martin Balsam and Joyce Van Patten, are trying to set her up with, you can't really blame her.
St. Elmo's Fire is a decent movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a stellar cast. We really get to see some of the most famous Brat Pack actors shine in this film, one of the more serious in their series of 80s teen movies, with the likes of Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy really giving it all in their roles, delivering complicated characters who have a lot going on after graduating college.
However, it is underwhelming as a film. It is not light hearted enough to make you smile, nor is it dramatic enough to have you at the edge of your seat. The dialogue is quite bland and it feels like Joel Schumacher was really going through the motions during filming. As well as that, the characters are very unlikeable. It does not portray either sides as villains, letting us as audiences decide who we support in the conflict in different plots, but I did not sympathise with any of them. I found every character to be in the wrong, all proving to be disloyal, selfish people, insincere human beings.
You finish this movie unsure whether it was genuinely trying to make you feel. Do not let the cast fool you, it is not another Breakfast Club, as a matter of fact, St Elmos Fire is somewhat of a layered mess; a group of college graduates struggle with adulthood and new found responsibilities.
There's no real plot to St. Elmo's Fire, but the film is a character study of the young folk of the Eighties, at least the young white folk of the Eighties. It might have been nice to have included a minority or two in the cast. Still the characters do have a certain charm and you do care about what's to become of them. Best performances in the film are Rob Lowe for the men and Demi Moore for the women. They also have the showiest roles.
As sociological study of the young urban professional of the time, you can't beat St. Elmo's Fire. Not bad in the entertainment department either.
This movie is a sentimental favourite for me. When you learn graduating from college means entering the real world. Captures the best times of the character's lives while going to Georgetown .The idealism versus realism as we all face coming of age. Some characters care about what others think of them, (Judd Nelson) others follow their dreams, (Rob Lowe). He loves me, he loves me not. It's a story of young lovers, their trials and infatuations with others (Emelio Estevez). It has a great message- to survive in this world you must be a man in motion and have the eye of the tiger; 6.5/10.
{I hear the theme 'St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)' - on the radio just about every day, which is what prompted me to watch in 2021 for the first time. Honestly though, the song is dope a real belter!}.
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