The Cast
|
FERRIS BUELLER |
Matthew Broderick |
|
CAMERON |
Alan Ruck |
|
SLOANE |
Mia Sara |
|
ED ROONEY |
Jeffrey Jones |
|
JEANNIE BUELLER |
Jennifer Grey |
Directed by John Hughes. Running time: 103 minutes. 1996.
The Story
A sweet, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help
his best friend win some self-respect. The therapy he has in mind includes a
day's visit to Chicago, and after we've seen the Sears Tower, the Art Institute,
the Board of Trade, a parade down Dearborn Street, architectural landmarks, a
Gold Coast lunch and a game at Wrigley Field, we have to concede that the city
and state film offices have done their jobs: "Ferris Bueller's Day
Off" works as a travelogue.
Ferris is a bright high school senior from the North Shore who fakes an illness
so he can spend a day in town with his girlfriend, Sloane and his best friend,
Cameron. At first, it seems as if skipping school is all he has in
mind--especially after he talks Cameron into borrowing his dad's restored red
Ferrari, a car the father loves more than Cameron himself.
The rest of the movie is a lighthearted excursion through the Loop, including a
German-American Day parade in which Ferris leaps aboard a float, grabs a
microphone and starts singing "Twist and Shout" while the marching
band backs him up. The teens fake their way into a fancy restaurant for lunch,
spend some time gawking at the masterpieces in the Art Institute, and go out to
Wrigley Field, where, of course, they are late and have to take box seats far
back in the left-field corner. (The movie gets that detail right; it would be
too much to hope that they could arrive in the third inning and find seats in
the bleachers.)
There is one great, dizzying moment when the teens visit the top of the Sears
Tower and lean forward and press their foreheads against the glass, and look
straight down at the tiny cars and little specks of life far below, and begin to
talk about their lives. And that introduces, subtly, the buried theme of the
movie, which is that Ferris wants to help Cameron gain self-respect in the face
of his father's materialism.
Ferris is, in fact, a bit of a philosopher. "Life goes by pretty fast," he
says, "if you don't stop and look around, you might miss it."
He's sensitive to the hurt inside his friend's heart, as Cameron explains how
his dad has cherished and restored the red Ferrari and given it a place of honor
in his life--a place denied to Cameron.
By
Roger Ebert