MovieChat Forums > St. Elmo's Fire (1985) Discussion > Which Character Do You Detest The Most?

Which Character Do You Detest The Most?


I'm not sure who's the most horrible of the lot. They all display immoral behaviour - some even seem to be amoral psychopaths.

At first, Rob Lowe takes a clear lead by being instantly detestable.
Then, once you realise he makes no attempt to hide it you have to question the others for being his friend - NB: 'You are known by the company you keep.'
Your attention is then drawn to Demi Moore who is probably the most self-centered of them all - she clearly cares only about herself and again makes it hard to believe the others are her friends (especially as she sounds like Marge Simpson).
Emilio Estevez enters the fray and quickly displays dangerous stalking behaviour, which suggests he's the one who's the biggest danger to others - and doesn't he tell (Dr) Andie MacDowell he's studying law and later switches to medicine? I know stalking wasn't a thing in 1985, but I'm fairly sure turning up uninvited to someone's private love shack, when they're there with someone else, was still disturbing behaviour.
As for Andie MacDowell - she doesn't even bat an eyelid throughout his demented actions and encourages him and teases him like he's a joke. Is she a psycho too?
Judd Nelson seems like the rock of the group, only to then reveal his unashamed promiscuity and sexual exploits that only normally occur in the plots of porn movies. All while trying to get Ally Sheedy to marry him out of some illogical belief that being stuck with one woman forever will make him want other women less. Promiscuity is a trait of psycopathy too.
As soon as Sheedy and Nelson break up, that very night we see his 'friend' Andrew McCarthy swoop in like a vulture to move in on her - his 'true love' for her clearly being more important than any thoughts that basically date-raping the drunk and vulnerable girl might be wrong.
But, hey, it's ok! Turns out that Sheedy just used McCarthy for revenge sex on Nelson and then makes them both her puppets.
Even Mare Winningham, the timid, plain Jane behaves in ways that makes it clear she overrates herself. She uses and leads on some Jewish lad just to get a car from daddy, all whilst lusting after married (with baby) scumbag Rob Lowe, who's admittedly ridiculously handsome, but offers nothing else (no one likes saxophone). Even when she loses Lowe she shows zero emotion.
The characters (yeah, I don't know their names) are all psychos! The writers expected people to care about these people in 1985?
...Anyway, I'm actually going with Ally Sheedy as being my most detested character - she actually makes an effort to use and hurt people, whilst hiding her true horrible nature throughout the film till that point.
...My outrage is 30 years late. Maybe I need a lie down. 
4/10 (the acting & music was ok).

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this is a great thread,
i just watched this movie for the first time in decades & didn't realize what absolutely loathsome people the characters are until now,
although it's very easy to hate every single main character in this flick, i take the most offense to the Mare Winningham character for the following reasons:
she is in love with the worst "on paper" character of the movie knowing full well how much of a horrible person he is
she's a plain Jane nerd-type who is basically charitably given a perfectly good man (albeit costumed in bad glasses, suit, & goofy hair to appear "ugly") on her attractiveness level, yet she throws him away because she doesn't "love" him (1 date?) & instead loves deadbeat dad Billy
despite vocalizing how much she loves her compassionate job & helping others, seemingly the most important thing in her life is to lose her virginity to Billy the slut in a perfect romantic & passionate love session
she gives her virginity away to Billy after he asks her for it as a going-away present... truly vomit-inducing scene

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We had stalking in 1985, Brainiac. We’ve had stalking as long as we’ve had humans.

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Billy itching for the virgin and "gifting" himself to Wendy because a filthy dick that has been in hundreds of pussies is God's gift to women incl. STDs. I couldn't believe the abject stupidity of that scene. It says a lot about Schumacher and his own promiscuity he was boasting about.

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Excellent analysis.

I've only seen this film in bits and pieces because it's so disturbing.

The cast look like 12 year olds pretending to be grown-ups. None of them have clearly done a day's work in their life outside of acting.

Andrew McCarthy as Kevin Dolenz is so smug I instantly wanted to punch the smirk off his stupid smug face.

Rob Lowe is just a cunt.

Demi Moore, I mean wtf is she up to in this.

That's all I could handle, I turned over.

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I recently watched this again, and I was shocked at how much I despised pretty much all the main characters. I liked Naomi the hooker the best. But everyone was so loathesome and screwed up it made me wonder how all of them got into Georgetown which is a good school.

I detested the Ally Sheedy character the most. Just her hairstyle in this movie made her detestable to me and her smugness around her flailing friends. Hated her character. And I hated the way she'd say "Alec" but that was probably just because Sheedy was a bad actress.

For the guys, I couldn't stand Emilio's the most. Total stalker, completely unhinged and immature. I mean, he's a graduate of Georgetown, wtf?

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Billy NEVER would have made it into Georgetown. The others, maybe.

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All of them. They were equally horrible.

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My favorite character is Andie MacDowell's boyfriend who we meet at the ski lodge, but I also like Mare Winningham's date, Howie Krantz.

Demi Moore's gay neighbor gets an honorable mention.

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