...if kids are going to cut, I wish they'd do it the way Ferris did it. I mean, do it right for Heaven's sake!
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The thing about "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" from a high school teacher's point of view is that if kids are going to cut, I wish they'd do it the way Ferris did it. I mean, do it right for Heaven's sake!
Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, is a teenage con artist supreme, a fellow who knows how to manipulate people and the world around him for maximum personal benefit. Not that he's manipulative in a bad way. He doesn't try to cheat anyone. Indeed, he tries hard to make the lives of those around him happier, at least those who will accept his help. His sister, played by Jennifer Grey, is one of only two people in the film who knows Ferris for the con man he is and can't stand it. She can't stand that he's getting away with something she can't get away with, or is too afraid to try.
The script, written and directed by John Hughes, is funny, satiric, bright, and inventive, sagging around the two-thirds mark but coming through with an exhilarating finish. Hughes has a lot of experience with this kind of thing--"The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles," "Weird Science"--and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" from 1986 is among the high-water marks of his career.
The story follows Ferris's adventures one school day in the spring of his senior year when he decides enough is enough, he needs a break. But he also needs accomplices, so he talks his cheerleader girlfriend, Sloane, played by Mia Sara, and his hypochondriac best friend, Cameron, played by Alan Ruck, to go along with him. Cameron is in special need of Ferris's help; his ego is at an all-time low.
They make their escape from suburbia to the big city, Chicago, in Cameron's father's pride and joy, a bright red 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider, a car the father loves more than life itself. Leaving school and their economics teacher, famously played by Ben Stein ("Anyone? Anyone?"), far behind, they set out on their escapade. They visit the world's tallest building; stop in on the Stock Exchange; eat lunch at a snobby restaurant; attend a baseball game; go to an art museum; and sing and dance in a street parade, which features the movie's show-stopping production number, Ferris lip-synching to the Beatles' "Twist and Shout."
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