St Elmos Fire

Seven friends, fresh out of Georgetown University, cope with the fears and realities of adulthood while drinking at their favourite hangout, St. Elmo's. Alex (Judd Nelson) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy) are career-minded and heading towards marriage. Virginal Wendy (Mare Winningham) only has eyes for wild, would-be rocker Billy (Rob Lowe)--whose wife and child don't prevent him from trying to relive his college days. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) ponders the meaning of life and secretly desires Leslie, while his roommate Kirbo (Estevez) pursues an elusive older woman (Andie MacDowell). Jules (Demi Moore) rounds out the group with her massive debts and cocaine problem. Joel Schumacher's twentysomething ensemble piece stands, for better or worse, as a revealing peek into the popular cinema--and values--of the 1980s. The film also represented a graduation of sorts, as Estevez, Sheedy, and Nelson portrayed high school students in John Hughes's THE BREAKFAST CLUB earlier in 1985.