Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Out are films that have shaped a generation in the ’80s, and they were all directed by John Hughes. Many films have been inspired by them throughout the decades, and the newly released This Too Shall Pass is a love letter to those films. Written and directed by Rob Grant, this is a departure from his horror background.

The cast includes Maxwell Jenkins (Netflix’s Lost in Space) as Simon, Jeremy Ray Taylor (It) as Chris, Katie Douglas (Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia) as Misty, Nikki Roumel (Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia) as Shelly, Jaylin Webb (Armageddon Time) as James, Ben Cockell (Disney+’s Goosebumps) as Tim, and Aidan Laprete (Hulu’s Swiped) as John.

Set in the ’80s, the film follows Jenkins as Simon, a teenager with Mormon parents. With a strict upbringing, he wants to get away from it all and plans a weekend road trip with his friends. The adventure is a roller coaster ride as he finds love amidst all the chaos.

“We really did want to do justice to the time period,” Jenkins tells Nerd Reactor. “And I think Rob was such a great captain in defining a very clear vision of what we were going for the ’80s. Not this dramatized version of it, but a real grounded version and not relying on neon lights and hairspray. We relied on the mired feeling that I think a lot of kids had in terms of this disconnect between them and their parents. And certainly something that I think sets growing up in that time period apart to nowadays, for the most part. I think there was such a big cultural divide between the silent generation parents and then the Gen X kids.”

Grant was thinking of the next project to work on during the COVID bubble, and he met a producer who was the real-life Simon. The producer asked him if he wanted to write his story, but he was hesitant because he previously made a film about three people on a boat trying to eat each other.

“I don’t know if I’m the right fit,” Grant felt. “And it just so happened that the more we talked, I found more similarities with the tension of horror in how teenagers treat their social life and their dating life. And I kind of use that as my in, but I’ve always had been trying to figure out a way to tell a story about a guy that wanted their life to be more like these movies. And as soon as I realized that I was kind of all of these characters, it just it poured out of me in a really, really a quick way. And it just it felt like the right time. It was very cathartic for all these little story ideas to just line up at once and kind of shoot out of me.”

About This Too Shall Pass

Synopsis: Simon, 16 and over the rules of his strict Mormon life, heads to Canada with his best friends for a weekend of freedom. What starts as a rebellious getaway turns into a funny, eye-opening adventure as they fumble their way through first tastes of independence, unexpected truths, and the messy, magical process of figuring out who they are.

The film stars Maxwell Jenkins, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Katie Douglas, Ben Cockell, Jaylin Webb, Aidan Laprete, Nikki Roumel, Chris Sandiford, Munro Chambers Joanne Kelly with Robert Longstreet, featuring Mark McKinney and Michael Ironside.

The film is written and directed by Rob Grant from a story by Michael Simon Baker. The film is produced by David Hiatt and Michael Peterson and executive produced by Michael Simon Baker and Jason R. Ellis.

This Too Shall Pass is now available to stream.