Sometimes we need a film where society’s rules are cheerfully trampled upon.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) is the perfect example of joyful anarchy. The titular character, Ferris Bueller, is a high school senior who, with his girlfriend, fakes an illness to take the day off school. His goal is to cheer up his best friend, a fretful hypochrondiac named Cameron.
The trio “borrow” a Ferrari for a frenetic trip through Chicago, giving us a virtual tour of the city, and letting us see how Ferris maneuvers his way into the most unexpected places.
In Ferris’s world, there are no rules that can’t be overcome, no situations that can’t be conquered, no parade that you can’t hijack and become the headliner of. It’s using the best of society while fooling everyone into thinking you’re making society even better.
Cameron explains Ferris’s appeal and does so, remarkably, without jealousy. “As long as I’ve known him, everything works for him,” he says. “There’s nothing he can’t handle. I can’t handle anything: school, parents, future. Ferris can do anything.”
Not only is Ferris Bueller the star of his own life, he’s the star of everyone’s life.
Writer/director John Hughes almost has us believing we ourselves could actually experience this kind of day. We could be Ferris Bueller, given the right circumstances – and a patterned vest with a white T-shirt.
Unless, sadly, you’re Ferris’s sister, who lives in an Opposite Universe. Rules taunt her, situations reward her adversaries, and there are no parades to be the star of. There’s only so much luck to go around in this movie, and Ferris’s beleaguered sister ain’t included.
Let us not forget Mr. Rooney, Ferris’s lackluster principal, who sees himself as the Boss of students. Rooney doesn’t buy Ferris Bueller’s baloney, nor is he swayed by his charm. Nay, Rooney knows a universal truth: If one person breaks the rules, then everyone might. One free-thinking person can obliterate law and order.
Even so, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has themes of friendship, family loyalties, and confronting the things that need to be confronted.
It’s life-affirming anarchy.
The aggrieved Principal Rooney. Image: IMDb
Why is Ferris Bueller so successful? Why does everything go his way?
He has the face of an innocent with the brains of a mastermind. It’s a relief to know he uses his powers for his friends’ benefit and not for global domination.
Because this film has the rare quality of being credible and incredible at the same time, fans have developed many theories, such as:
Ferris really is sick on his day off, and the whole thing is a fevered dream.
Cameron is sick, and the whole thing is his a fevered dream.
Ferris has an insanely high IQ.
Cameron is secretly in love with Ferris’s girlfriend.
The characters live in a Groundhog Day loop, which is why everything goes so smoothly.
Our favourite theory is Ferris is not real; he is the product of Cameron’s troubled subconscious.
Cameron has a difficult home life. His parents are wealthy and devote more time to their haute couture lifestyle than to their son. The “borrowed” Ferrari belongs to Cameron’s dad, and it’s kept like a shrine in a temple-garage with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Our Cameron is a forgotten, unloved child, who must Behave and Stay Out of the Way. We never see Cameron’s parents, which is only fair, because it seems he doesn’t, either.
For Cameron to escape this life, goes the theory, he invents Ferris Bueller, an uninhibited, no-holds-barred alter ego who charges into life head on and never loses. With this persona, Cameron can bear his bleak existence.
But events in the film will push Cameron to face some difficult truths on his own, without Ferris’s help.
When the unimaginable happens. Image: TMDB
They say John Hughes wrote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in a week, and filmed it in three months with a budget of $5 million US (approx. $15 million today). It grossed $6.2 million US during its opening weekend, and was the tenth highest-grossing movie of 1986.
With so many films based in New York, why did Hughes choose Chicago?
“Chicago is what I am,” said Hughes. “A lot of Ferris is sort of my love letter to the city….I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could, not just the architecture and the landscape, but the spirit.”¹
In this film, Ferris breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience directly. He does this 26 times, according to the websites that keep track. Even in the movie-making process, Ferris plays by his own rules.
Have you seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? If so, what are some of your favourite scenes?
This post is part of THE “EDDIE’S YEAR” BLOGATHON, hosted by 18 Cinema Lane.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off starring Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara. Written & directed by John Hughes. Paramount Pictures, 1986, Colour, 103 mins.
Silver Screenings 