Class reunion
A class reunion is a meeting of former classmates, typically organized at or near their former school by one of the class on or around an anniversary of their graduation. Former teachers may be invited as well. Usually, participants nostalgically reminisce about their old school days, fondly remember their school pranks, and bring each other up to date on what has happened to each of them since they went their separate ways.
Class reunions in film and literature
In film and literature, especially crime novels, thrillers and psychological suspense novels, class reunions have been a frequent device used to show the eruption of emotions such as shame, hatred or guilt within individual characters who, suddenly faced again with their own youth, become aware of the fact that they have been unable to cope with their past. In many cases, those who used to be bullied, humiliated or in any other way mistreated by their teachers and/or classmates believe that now their chance has come to take revenge on their former torturers.
Another staple of this kind of fiction is former classmates taking up with their old flame again, either because they have changed to their advantage and developed into an admirable adult or precisely for the opposite reason—because they have not changed at all in a fleeting world.
Examples of fiction revolving around class reunions are Tim O'Brien's July, July (2002), Paul Reizin's Fiends Reunited (2004), Ben Elton's Past Mortem, and Simone van der Vlugt's De reünie, both of the same year. Films include Kenneth Branagh's Peter's Friends (1992), George Armitage's Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Since You've Been Gone (1998), directed by David Schwimmer.