‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it...’
Is there anything as cosy as a John Hughes film? Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles… I could watch his films forever. Trying to pick a favourite is tough, it really is, but honestly? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off might just be the perfect movie…
After a series of elaborate tricks and stunts, local legend and high school kid Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) bags himself a day off school in Chicago with his vivacious girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his neurotic best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck). However, unbeknown to our hero, his sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) and the principal of the local school (Jeffrey Jones) are on Bueller’s tail.
This is one of the those films where everything comes together. This is Hughes’ best script. It’s sharp, witty and laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also endlessly quotable with literally every single scene featuring a memorable line of dialogue. All of the primary leads give career best performances. Broderick is so likeable and so charismatic that he has the viewer eating out of the palm of his hand inside the first ten minutes. Ferris Bueller is quite simply one of the most irresistible cinematic creations ever. I want to go to high school with him. I want to go to an art gallery with him. I want to do it all. It is testament then to his co-stars that they match him every step of the way. Ruck’s Cameron is the picture of teenage angst and it is his heart to heart with Sloane Peterson that really captures that feeling of teenage listlessness. Or as The Beatles put it – ‘Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go…’
Elsewhere, Grey is suitably snotty and vindictive, Jones stays just the right side of being a pantomime villain and anyone who claims that they didn’t fall instantly in love with Mia Sara after seeing her performance as Sloan here is flat out lying to you. Don’t trust them.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is 103 minutes of smiles. It is a film about freedom, and youth, and endless summers, and everything else that makes life worth living. And that’s without mentioning the incredible soundtrack or Charlie Sheen’s joyous cameo. Quite simply one of the greatest films ever made.