Brats TV review — Andrew McCarthy searches for closure in ‘Brat Pack’ documentary

In June 1985, Andrew McCarthy, the 22-year-old star of various teen flicks, was name-checked in an unflattering New York magazine cover story about a group of young, hard-partying actors titled “Hollywood’s Brat Pack”. A mocking pun on Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”, the label quickly came to define, and almost derail, the careers of McCarthy and several of his contemporaries and co-stars including Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. Except for the last two, none were able to fully transcend the tag.

Having apparently spent the last 40 years stewing about the article, McCarthy now tries to find some long-overdue closure with a little help from old friends. In Brats, a 90-minute feature, the actor-turned-filmmaker reunites with several of his cohort to discuss what it meant to be a member of the “Brat Pack” and how the label follows them to this day.

Hanging out in designer kitchens and on poolside patios, they reminisce about early successes and on-set camaraderie and reflect on why their coming-of-age classics such as The Breakfast Club and St Elmo’s Fire became cultural touchstones for Eighties teens. But warm, fuzzy nostalgia is invariably offset with bitter feelings of resentment and regret. McCarthy in particular seems haunted by the way things played out in the years after the article; Spielberg and Scorsese never came calling, he suggests, because of the label’s negative connotations.

As it progresses, the film becomes less about an era or a group and more about McCarthy’s inability to process the past. If the others recall being hurt by the sensational, snide press coverage at the time, some also seem surprised by the extent to which McCarthy has let it consume him. Neither Estevez nor the peppy Lowe match his raw indignation, while Moore delicately delivers some truths. “You made that mean something about you,” she tells McCarthy.

It’s at this point that we realise that what we’re watching is not really documentary, but an extended personal therapy session. And though this soul-bearing approach marks a welcome departure from a number of recent anodyne celebrity retrospectives, it can also feel indulgent. McCarthy often risks inviting irritation and ridicule with the unwarranted gravity with which he discusses this supposedly “monumental moment” — not least when asking people if they “remember where [they] were when the first heard [they] heard the term ‘Brat Pack’” as if it was the Kennedy assassination.

Things improve with the climactic meeting between McCarthy and the author of that fateful piece, David Blum. For four decades the former has carried the weight of two words conceived by the latter with barely a second thought and seemingly no ill will. That one man’s offhand pun could be another man’s life-long pain is an affecting reminder of the ease with which we can hurt others and the difficulty of letting go.

★★★☆☆

On Disney+ in the UK and on Hulu in the US now