Actor Timothy Hutton is one of the many actors interviewed for the Hulu documentary Brats; though he’s not a member of the Brat Pack, he’s considered its unofficial godfather. The documentary was created by official Brat Pack member Andrew McCarthy, who produced it as a catharsis to process how the “Brat Pack” label affected his career. The coin was termed in a 1985 New York Magazine article by David Blum (who also appears in the documentary). McCarthy interviewed fellow Brat Pack members Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, and others for the film.
The actors dominated the box office with movies like The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986). The movies dawned a new era for Hollywood, in which young people were featured in motion pictures marketed to other young people. Hollywood had previously focused on more adult narratives. A cultural shift happened in the early 1980s that allowed young people to become wildly successful in honestly representing their stage of life in the movies. Though there are certain actors associated with the era of the Brat Pack today, it was really Timothy Hutton who got the ball rolling.
Timothy Hutton Broke Out A Little Earlier Than The Brat Pack (But Was Only A Few Years Older)
While most of the Brat Pack members and their affiliates got big breaks in the mid-1980s, Tim Hutton broke out a little earlier (even though he was only a few years older). Hutton’s first major role was in the 1980 family drama Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford. In it, he portrays Conrad, an alienated teenager who attempts to take his own life. He starred opposite Mary Tyler Moore, who portrayed his mother, Beth, and Donald Sutherland, who portrayed his father, Calvin. The movie received critical acclaim, earning six Oscars nominations for the 53rd Academy Awards in 1981, winning four.
Hutton’s Ordinary People won the Oscar for Best Picture, Robert Redford took home an Oscar for Best Director, and Alvin Sargent won for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the most tremendous significance to the next generation of films is that Tim Hutton, at just 20 years old, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Ordinary People. Hutton succeeded in taking the risk of portraying a young person at one of the most vulnerable moments in a person’s life. His success in doing so created a model.
His Movie Ordinary People Could Be Considered A Proto-Brat Pack Movie
In Brats, Andrew McCarthy argues that “the origins of the youth film” started with Hutton’s role in Ordinary People. While it wasn’t a teen movie, McCarthy notes that the Academy Award-winning film took Hutton’s young character seriously and set the right tone for films to center on the vulnerabilities of young people in the future. Hutton’s Ordinary People could be considered a proto-Brat Pack movie because it created the mold for a young person to take shape on the screenin a way that one had rarely been portrayed before, and with such honesty to the human condition.
One common element between the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s is that they focus on genuine portrayals of the tumultuous life of young people. Director John Hughes was particularly gifted at allowing authentic characters to guide his movies, and Robert Redford set the stage for young people to flourish on-screenwith Hutton’s character in Ordinary People. Hutton recounts in Brats how many scripts featured young people in their 20s during the Brat Pack era, when previously Hollywood had rarely allowed them to be the central focus of movies.