I was on the fence for most of Brats, a Brat Pack documentary by Andrew McCarthy, former member of the Brat Pack. Actually, he is still a member of the Brat Pack. Once you are in that club, you can’t leave.
I sympathized with his general unease in his younger acting days when, after an article written by some smartass journalist came out, he and Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and others were labeled the “Brat Pack.” McCarthy didn’t like the implication of being labeled a brat, and he’s held a bit of a grudge throughout the years. Understandable.
But, man, this dude—a very privileged and lucky dude, I might add—just won’t stop whining. And when he sits with the actual journalist who wrote the article at the film’s end, he just keeps drilling the guy for writing the article, even during the goodbye handshake.
Oh, shut up, you whiny bitch. You were a movie star. You are still kind of a movie star (albeit not as much of one as most of the other members of the so-called Brat Pack). Maybe that’s because you whined about being in the Brat Pack too much—and, you know, you signed on the dotted line for the Weekend at Bernie’s movies. I concur that “Brat Pack” was an unfair labeling of a solid group of young actors, and it pissed me off from day one, but come on, let it go.
Much of the film is McCarthy calling old acting accomplices and trying to secure interviews. He hooks Lowe, Estevez, Sheedy, Demi Moore and Jon Cryer, while Nelson and Ringwald abstain, probably because this dude drives them crazy.
Some of the interviews are fine (especially those with Lowe and Estevez), and being a big fan of these movies, I enjoy the subject matter. But McCarthy isn’t a great documentarian, and his pissy attitude eventually kills all the fun.
Brats is now streaming on Hulu.
A group of my friends are right there with you! One who routinely posts movie reviews on Facebook panned it and we all jumped on. I started watching the doc thinking it was going to be something great about kindred spirits all grown up, or for Gen Xers like me a walk down memory lane. Instead it was Andrew griping and looking for fellow gripers. Demi Moore and Rob Lowe clearly got the therapy McCarthy should have and kept it movin’. I ended up cheering the NY Magazine writer at the end of that interview and agree with Demi – ultimately, at the time, even the writer was just a young artist trying to get his next big break. Deal with it, Andrew.
Yes, Andrew McCarthy is whiny but I think he made a pretty good doc. As Director\Writer\Producer, I give him some credit for not trying to stuff the film into a neat little narrative. He kind of let it play out and exposed his whiny-ness. Yes, it gets on your nerves but I think it paints a more 3 dimensional picture of fame and fortune and how it can create a sense of trauma that different people handle differently and for which normal people have very little sympathy. I thought it was interesting. The film is not going to cure cancer and I don’t think it can compete with the best documentaries in the world. It is slow in spots but as a documentary, I think he avoided many typical cliches and ended up making a pretty good film.
I kept placing this in the “what if this was happening in this day and age” with trolls and fake accounts and google and shaming for everything??
Young actors today have to deal with so much more than a moniker that comes out of ONE article. Give me a break! I loved these actors and all the movies. An 80’s teen. I’m sorry it had such a strong impact on some of them. Maybe the adults around them should have counseled them more. They were obviously not coddled or “managed” in the way today’s actors are.
This documentary is alot about nothing. People get crushed in the film, music, medical, legal, sports or blue collar areas of life. The Brat Pack is no different…it is called life. I would be embarrassed to put that much thought into something that happened in my 20s. The real issue is that these people think they were special. Uh…they weren’t. I will never get my time back from watching this and I will never be around to sit through something called The Scat Pack or the Chat Pack or the Hat Pack. If it’s any consolation Mr McCarthy, the evil journalist lives in a shitty apartment as opposed to the beautiful homes the Brat Pack people live in.
I agree with Bill that the film worked because it was therapy for his whininess, and without it, the film would have been boring. However, McCarthy was unwilling to show his own vulnerabilities when it comes to acknowledging his early good fortune and that his later career struggles have nothing to do with the brat pack label.
It’s instructive to go back and read the original article that seems to have caused Mr. McCarthy so much pain, you can find it at https://nymag.com/movies/features/49902/
What’s interesting is that the first time his name is mentioned comes in paragraph 50 of about 55 total, and then only to say :
“And of Andrew McCarthy, one of the New York–based actors in St. Elmo’s Fire, a co-star says, “He plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it.” ”
With all of his talk of how devastating this article was for him, I have to wonder if the real pain was not that he was included, but that he was barely included, and when he was, it was with a criticism.