Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a film written and directed by John Hughes. The film is set in the late 80s in a fictional northern suburb of Shermer, Illinois. We are instantly introduced to the irreverent high school senior, Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who prides himself on having sick days well spent. Ferris is on his ninth sick day this semester; he says that he has to make this one count because “If I go for 10, I’m going to have to barf up a lung.” Ferris’ principal, Ed Rooney has been treating his absences with contempt and suspicion and spends the entirety of the film trying to track Ferris down and expose his lie. Ferris decides to spring his girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), from school and asks his hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to pose as her father on the phone to do so. Sloane is sprung and the trio head into downtown Chicago to enjoy their school-free day. The audience quickly takes to Ferris and his street-smart attitude whilst reveling in his ability to avoid getting in trouble at every turn.

The plot of this film is that it really doesn’t have one and this is perhaps why people adore it so much. The film doesn’t try to teach the viewers a moral lesson and rather focuses on how, in Ferris’ words, “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it.” The film climaxes at a few points but the main one is when Cameron loses it and beats up his Dad’s car; the prized 1961 Ferrari GT California which ends up flying through a glass window and plummeting to the ground about 30 feet down. This point in the movie sees Cameron finally stand up to his Dad thus taking control of his life once and for all. It is suggested at points throughout the film that Ferris set out simply to help Cameron overcome his current situation. For example, when Ferris leaves Sloane out the front of her house after the whole Cameron fiasco she says “You knew what you were doing when you woke up this morning, didn’t you?” and Ferris simply grins.

The film flashes between Ferris, Cameron & Sloane’s day to Ed Rooney’s and Ferris’ sister, Jeanie’s. Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) is Ferris’ younger sister and has become entirely fed up with Ferris doing whatever he wants whenever he wants and never getting reprimanded for it. Thus Jeanie sets out to try and prove that Ferris isn’t sick and is simply out gallivanting about with his friends. As an added running gag throughout the film, students and general townspeople seem to rally together over Ferris’ alleged terminal illness. The viewers begin to see many billboards, blimps, water towers and even the scoreboard at the baseball game read the immortal phrase, Save Ferris. Jeanie and Rooney both outraged at Ferris’ actions notice these and become even more enraged with him. One of the final climaxes of the movie is when Jeanie is sitting in the police station after filing a “false” report about an intruder in the house. Here she meets an addict played by Charlie Sheen who tells her that she should spend more time living her life than worrying about what her brother does. Jeanie takes this to heart and begins to stew on it. The ending climax of the movie sees Ferris arrive home just as Rooney corners him at the back door. Surprised by this, Ferris cannot even form a single sentence to excuse himself. Jeanie is watching with a smirk from the window but then remembers the advice the addict gave her at the police station and comes to her brother’s rescue. This is the ultimate turning point in the movie as we see brother and sister – natural-born enemies – reconcile and start to see eye to eye. In the end, aided by his sister, Ferris manages to make it back to bed just in time for his parents to come in and check on him. Due to the fact he had been sprinting through the neighbourhood only a brief moment ago, his head feels warm which his parents accept as a sign of his illness.

Everything works out for Ferris regardless of how many close calls he has throughout the film and his immortal words of “you can never go too far” ring even truer than before.