Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Movie Review
In 1986, a comedy called Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released, which takes place in Chicago. It stars Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, Alan Ruck as Cameron Frye, Mia Sara as Sloane Peterson, Jeffrey Jones as Ed Rooney, and Jennifer Gray as Jeannie Bueller. It is produced by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club) and Tom Jacobson (Uncle Buck). The director is John Hughes.
The story centers on a 17-year-old boy named Ferris Bueller. One day he pretends to be sick to skip school and have fun. His parents are easily fooled, while his younger sister, Jeannie, is not. As soon as his parents and his sister leave, he gets up and begins to enjoy his day off. He calls his best friend Cameron Frye and asks her to come over with the car, but he really is sick. Finally, Ferris pushes him away, and Cameron reluctantly agrees. Ferris then tries to get her girlfriend Sloane Peterson out of school by having Cameron pose as her father and call Ed Rooney, the dean of students, and tell him to release her because her grandmother just died. Rooney, thinking it’s Ferris on the phone, tries to catch him in a lie. But Ferris calls Rooney on a different line. The dean tries to apologize, but “Mr. Peterson” wouldn’t allow it. He begins to give Rooney a hard time.
Later, Ferris and Cameron arrive to pick her up in one of Cameron’s father’s cars, which Ferris made her take instead of her own car. Together, they all head off to downtown Chicago to have fun. Jeannie, seeing Sloane waiting outside the school, goes to Rooney’s office to tell him that Ferris is faking it, but he isn’t there. He himself has come out to bust Ferris and make an example of him. His younger sister heads home to confirm that Ferris has left. After doing so, he tries to call her mother but is unable to reach her. Meanwhile, Rooney breaks into the house just after she hangs up. Jeannie, thinking it’s Ferris, quietly goes downstairs. At the same time, Rooney hears Jeannie in the hallway and believes that she is Ferris. They both jump and scare each other. Jeannie kicks Rooney in the face after not acknowledging him. She calls the police and they come looking for her for making a fake phone call.
Meanwhile, Ferris and his friends have left the car in a seedy garage. Unbeknownst to them, the two employees there take the car for a fun ride while the three friends enjoy Chicago. After picking up the car, Cameron realizes that there are many more miles on the car’s odometer than he remembers, so he panics. Ferris’s best friend, then, goes into a trance and then comes out when he falls into a pool. They try to cut the miles by reversing the car, but it doesn’t work. Frustrated, Cameron accidentally kicks the car out the back window of the garage. He eventually decides to take a stand against his uptight father’s father and will take the heat for what happened to the car. Ferris drops his girlfriend off at his house and realizes that he has five minutes to get home before his parents. He takes a detour through some backyards and when he finally gets to the back door, Rooney is waiting for him there hoping to arrest him.
One of the most interesting characters in the film is Ferris’s best friend, Cameron Frye. Cameron is an uptight teenager whose father has the wrong priorities and pushes his son. What Ferris may have been trying to do when he took Cameron along was to show him that “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” At first, Cameron is hesitant to leave his house and join Ferris because he might get in trouble. But he goes anyway, and later allows Ferris to borrow his father’s car. Later, after falling into a trance, he realizes that he cannot hide from his father forever. After the car is destroyed, he confronts his father and finally seems free.
A personal favorite scene is when Ferris sings “Twist and Shout” in front of the entire city of Chicago. She does this because Cameron had told her that she hadn’t seen anything good that day so far. Everyone including Sloane and Cameron dance to the song and the viewer can’t help but sing and dance along with them. This scene adds a great musical element to the movie.
In closing, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a great feel-good comedy and widely viewed as one of the best movies of the 1980s. It comes highly recommended.