Ladies and gentlemen, you are such a wonderful crowd, I’d like to
describe a little film for you. It’s one of my personal favorites and
I’d like to dedicate it to a young man who doesn’t think there’s
anything good about it.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is the fourth and finest of the John
Huges-directed teen comedies. Like its predecessors, the film is set
in the environs of a Midwestern high-school with an ensemble cast of
geeks, freaks and prom-queens; unlike its predecessors, Ferris takes a
less earnestly melodramatic and more worldly view, widening its scope
of reference from classrooms and hallways to the world beyond. The
film is less obsessed with the high-school caste system than Sixteen
Candles (and the Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink), less sentimental than
Breakfast Club, and less peurile than Weird Science. In its more adult
take on the teenage world, Ferris is also far funnier than any of the
earlier films.
Where Hughes’ earlier films were narrowly focussed on the cliques and
codes of early mid-teen life, Ferris examines the hopes and fears of
three friends (not a clique, but a genuine friendship group) about to
leave for college and, beyond that, adulthood. Where the concerns of
Hughes’ younger teenage characters in earlier films – popularity, peer
acceptance and a prom date – seem superficial and transient to adult
viewers now, the characters in Ferris worry about finding a role in
life and maintaining relationships over distance and time, far more
universal concerns that still resonate with this viewer.
Ferris the character is neither hero nor true antihero. He’s not a
jock, he’s not a brain, he’s not president of the drama society. He’s
a minor rebel, characterised by his principal as having an attitude
problem, but not a loner or an outcast – news of Ferris’s illness
(exaggerated by Chinese whispers throughout the course of the movie)
leads to horror throughout the student body, among whom he is
well-liked. He’s handy with a computer (although emphatically not a
nerd, contrasting him with Weird Science’s friendless-geek leads), and
clearly bright but wasting his potential. In other words, he’s an
average cocky 18-year-old Western male slacker, courting the attention
of his peers without being mature enough to realise his impending
responsibilities, the kind of character Bart Simpson would grow into
if he ever graduated grade school.
Ferris’s immature rebellion is not without aspiration, however –
school principal Roooney (the marvellous Jeffrey Jones), attempting to
track down the truants, goes to all the places in town he believes a
teenager would want to hang out – fast food diners and grungy
amusement arcades. Instead, the trio of Ferris, best friend Cameron
and cheerleader girlfriend Sloane “borrow” Cameron’s father’s 1961
Ferrari 250 GT California and drive to Chicago for a day of fine
dining, fine art, live sports and adventures with a street parade.
Rooney’s underestimation of Ferris’s aspirations gets him into scrapes
and costs him his quarry.
As well as its young-adult (rather than mid-teen) outlook and
extra-school Chicago setting, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off differs from
earlier Hughes outings in having a more playful relationship with the
viewer. Where The Breakfast Club’s characters stayed firmly within
their allocated spaces on screen, Ferris frequently breaks the fourth
wall to banter with the audience. One of the reasons we accept his
desire for a day off with sympathy is not just because he drives a
Ferrari and it looks cool, but because he takes us into his world,
sharing tips (“the key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands”)
and confiding in us the hopes and fears (“Sloane’s this bigger
problem”) that temper his front of cocky self-assurance. Hughes does
play with fourth-wall breaking in other movies, but typically in his
adult-led films (such as National Lampoon) rather than his teen
rite-de-passage items.
In addressing the viewer directly, Ferris also gives us access to the
fantasy that is his day off. “If you had access to a car like this,”
he asks us, “would you take it back right away? …Neither would I.”
We sympathise with Ferris because he does what we want to do. There’s
the Ferrari, of course (man, that car is beautiful), but there’s also
the audacious kidnap of Sloane from the school, his dealings with a
snooty (snooty?) snotty (snotty!) maitre d’, the jumping onstage to
sing “Twist and Shout” with a Bavarian band, the viewing a gallery
full of priceless artworks while The Dream Academy play a cover of
“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”. (OK, that last one is
maybe a thing we all could do tomorrow, I just wanted to drop my
favourite fact in somewhere). All of the above might look like the
antics of a self-satisfied little twerp if it weren’t for the
invitation to be part of the action.
And plus, the fourth-wall breaking business not only lets us inside
the head of a frustrated Midwestern teen forced to go through the
nonsense of a standard US education (Ben Stein’s scene really is
fantastic on this), but it gives us some great lines to enjoy into the
bargain. I can’t resist: “I mean, really, what’s the point? I’m not
European. I don’t plan on being European. So who gives a crap if
they’re socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn’t
change the fact that I don’t own a car.”
In fact, Ferris is the film that has made the second-greatest impact
on my everyday vocabulary after Heathers. I mainly quote Jeannie – “Do
you know anything”, “Speaka da ENGLISH???” and “Go piss up a flagpole”
are personal favourites. I think Jennifer Grey gives a great
performance here, and it’s a much more fun character than that
mealy-mouthed Baby in Dirty Dancing. The neurotic Cameron is the
perfect foil for always-together Ferris, and is convincing both as a
character and as a loyal best friend – each supplies what the other
lacks.
Principal Rooney, as the authoritarian nemesis, can also be seen as
the yin to Ferris’s yang – he fears and perhaps secretly envies the
way Ferris appears to have control over the student body, the way he
himself would like to. “Last thing I need at this point in my career
is fifteen hundred Ferris Bueller disciples running around these
halls,” says Rooney. “He jeopardizes my ability to effectively govern
this student body.” Rooney’s secretary Grace helfpully spells out the
problem: “Well, makes you look like an ass is what he does, Ed.”
Really, though, that soul of the film lies in Matthew Broderick’s
fantastic central performance. The man may have taken over Broadway
since 1986 and won Tony Awards and whatnot, but he’ll be remembered by
a generation as the slightly spoiled, slightly rebellious,
slightly-cooler-than-the-rest-of-the-class-but-not-to-the-point-of-implausibility
graduating senior, and that comes down to a great interpretation of a
mature and well-written role.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is often billed as a teen comedy or a slice
of 80s nostalgia. With Sigue Sigue Sputnik on the soundtrack, it
certainly is the latter, and it admittedly is a comedy with teens in
it; but I also think it’s not limited to a teenage audience or to a
teenage worldview. It’s about friendship, love, and what you want to
do in life, and those are concerns not limited to the Reagan era or
the end of high-school. The film is populated by authentic characters
rather than stereotypes, dusted with musings on the nature of
existence without toppling into the melodramatic, scripted with
genuine warmth and acted by a great cast. But most importantly of all,
it is simply very funny.
By Lise Smith