Review: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Story: It’s a beautiful spring day – and North Shore high schooler Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) wants to make the most of it by constructing an elaborate sick day ruse and romping around downtown Chicago. Only it’s his ninth – and Principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) ain’t buying it as he ruthlessly hunts down his most hated truant.
Judgment: My favorite John Hughes film – at once his most universally accessible and his least traditional. The looser narrative suits a film whose main character simply ignores the rules (including that of breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience). Broderick may never find a role as perfect as Ferris, and his chemistry with Ruck’s Cameron creates the ultimate pathos that holds the story together. Jeffrey Jones (sadly, now a registered sex offender) also gets to star in his own great little screwball comedy trying to break into the Bueller house. It’s unnecessary to pigeonhole this film as a Hughes teen comedy or contextualize it with Reagan-era bromides – just watch it and feel the joy of being alive.
What’s it all mean: Ferris is an unusual protagonist – he really faces no crisis and undergoes no change, he simply flits from one place to another, directly or indirectly letting people briefly forget their strictures and routines and live in the moment. Most importantly, he yanks his best friend out of what could have become a suicidal lethargy. Hughes drops in some intimations that Ferris might be screwed after high school – but what does that matter in a movie all about the eternal present?
Essential scene: Ferris seemingly gets the whole Loop area population to sing along to The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout.” Sorry, lads. It belongs to Ferris now.

Advertisement