St. Elmo’s Fire

Originally published on social media on August 17th, 2024

I love that the poster reads, “the heat this summer is at Saint Elmo’s Fire” for two reasons: 1). It’s delightfully cheesy advertisement 2). I’m watching this movie in the summer even though it is TOTALLY an Autumn movie , and I think it might be the best movie I’ve seen all summer.

A movie can be good for many reasons, but it has to have an intangible magic in order to be irreplaceable…dare I say it needs to have a certain fire? This fire burns throughout specific moments of the film, and if I were to go back and watch it again, I would be willing to be that the fire burned when the love theme played. David Foster put together an incredible score for these moments, and it makes you feel so alive and empowered just listening to it. I immediately bought the song on iTunes after finishing the movie, and I hope that it will become the score of these next brave steps I take in my life.

St. Elmo’s Fire, like many of the supposed “Brat Pack Films” (I say supposed because I watched Andrew McCarthy’s documentary and I still don’t know what to think of the term), feels realistic in its imperfect characters doing imperfect things. These classics remind us that we can be stupid or do stupid things, but that we can also grow and love and that life can still be beautiful in every moment, both the ordinary and extraordinary.