‘A celebration of the carefree’: why Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is my feelgood movie

7 hours ago 1

It’s hard to ignore a film’s message when the main character is addressing you directly down the barrel of the camera. Granted, the first time I watched the 1986 teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was the impressionable age of 11 and “Look people in the eyes when they’re talking to you” was on constant rotation in my household. So my green eyes met Ferris’s brown ones and I took it all in.

Centred around Matthew Broderick’s playful turn as Ferris Bueller, a high school senior faking illness to skip school, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is certainly a celebration of the carefree, though the story is by no means languid. Made frantic by doing the thing you’re not supposed to do with the aid of a red Ferrari, the day speeds by in comparison to the fictional days of other American teen films, such as American Graffiti and Dazed & Confused – which, to be fair, features a decent amount of marijuana.

The pace owes itself to the constant change in location. Once Ferris’s doting parents fall for a clammy-hands stunt (“lick your palms”), his day is well and truly off. With charm and, yes, a bit of verbal manipulation, he wrangles his best friend, Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck), and his girlfriend, Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara), out of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago to tour the city’s many offerings, all while escaping the clutches of a jealous sister and a wrathful dean of students.

These antagonists are mere personifications of the status quo – a signature of the film’s writer-director, John Hughes, who devoted much of his career to coming-of-age narratives. Through jokes, monologues and the occasional devastating remark about growing up, Hughes’s scripts expressed his contempt for adults masking capitalist values with maturity – just do what you’re told and smile. To Hughes, young people saw the world with a clarity deserving of attention.

A belief he underlines with a shot of Ferris, Sloane and Cameron, standing on railings while pressing their heads to the glass windows of the then-tallest building in the world, the Sears Tower (now named Willis Tower). Peering down, Sloane notes, “The city looks so peaceful from up here.” “Anything is peaceful from 1,353 feet,” Ferris muses. To wield perception is a strength, one honed by this titular character.

Known as the final line, the movie’s defining quote also makes an appearance at the very beginning as Ferris prepares for his day off: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” A lesson I’m still attempting to grasp in adulthood – one I know I’m not alone in. Most of us aren’t making out in front of stained glass windows nearly enough.

Ferris Buller breaking the fourth wall, the line is delivered to the audience, to me age 11, 15, 21, 28 – its meaning more significant with each passing year. Upon that first watch, I was captivated by the concept that one could be extraordinary because they reveled in life’s ordinary activities: visiting a local landmark, attending a baseball game, meandering around a museum; there was no need for superhuman strength, a high level of intellect nor even loving the right person. With charisma and the inherent knowledge that singing on a parade float is something one should do if given the opportunity then naturally the adoration of “the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads” will follow.

Admittedly, Cameron is the more relatable character, weighted heavily by unfeeling parents and Ferris’s schemes. Many viewers cite Ferris as a “psychopath” in regards to his insensitive approach to get Cameron out of bed. Perhaps we’re so entrenched in therapy-speak nowadays, but we don’t have friends to tell us we’re perfect, we have them to remind us what’s out there. Challenge us when we claim we’ve seen “nothing good”, as Cameron does. Living is friction made palatable when it’s not a lone endeavour. Ferris should have taken some blame for the crunched Ferrari, though; he’s no hero, not even to me.

Lip-syncing Danke Schoen doesn’t cure my anxiety-riddled brain nor does channeling Ferris make me impenetrable to unlikability – one-dimensionality is best left to characters on a screen. But the film does give me the tools to feel. Help me make sense of my path. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is there for me when I need to be reminded to stand still. Watching to stop every once in a while, so I don’t miss it.