Today we celebrate 30 years of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop
and look around once in a while, you could miss it. So says high schooler
Ferris on June 11th thirty years ago, as we celebrate the 30th
anniversary release of the now iconic comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off starring Matthew Broderick. Ferris
pretends to be sick and takes his best friend Fry and his girlfriend Sloan on
a final high school adventure into Chicago, while his principal
believes that he is playing hooky and is determined to catch him.
This is pretty much the perfect film and
easily one of the best comedies ever. It is both smart and funny and yet it has
its serious moments as they deal with various themes of separation, love, and
family dysfunction. Everything that went into it was great, the cast, acting,
directing, script, location settings, editing, costumes, score, the classic
1961 Ferrari, and tons of quotable dialogue and memorable scenes.
Could anyone else have better played the
character of Ferris better than Matthew Broderick? He plays him superbly. He is
sweet and funny and everybody loves him, he is basically everything that you
would want to be. His comedic timing and facial gestures throughout the movie
are impeccable, and his constant breaking of the forth wall to speak to the
audience adds into to making the character and picture so memorable. The rest
of the casting is wonderful as well; it includes Alan Ruck as Fry who delivers both
good comedy and the best dramatic moments of this, Mia Sara as Ferris’s
girlfriend Sloan, Jeffrey Jones as Principal Rooney who plays the hilarious
villain and gives us a lot of physical humor, Jennifer Grey as Ferris’s bitchy
sister, and Edie McClurg has some funny moments as the principal’s secretary.
This was written and directed by John
Hughes, the man behind some other well known 1980’s youth comedies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird
Science. In his writing, he ended up providing us with tons of quotable
dialogue and so many scenes that ended up being unforgettable. His direction is
interesting as well, as he really focused on having close-ups on the actors in
order to show all of their facial expressions. And there are so many, as every
one of them ends up giving some excellent expressions. This includes the extras
that they used as bored high school students in the various classes. The
editing was nicely done by Paul Hirsch, who also edited the first two Star Wars
movies.
This picture isn’t just about their
adventure it’s also about the city of Chicago, as they hit all of the major
locations. They go to the Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, the stock exchange, the
Art Institute of Chicago, a fancy restaurant, and a German parade. The art
scene resonates with me as they showcase all of this great work that is on
display there, while also further developing the story and the characters all
through a montage set to music. The score was mostly done by Ira Newborn who
had previously worked with Hughes on Sixteen
Candles and Weird Science; it
also includes the songs “Oh Yeah” by Yello, “Danke Schoen” by Wayne Newton, and
“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles. And who cannot forget the absolutely stunning
1961 red Ferrari, which ends up being a star of its own in this.
There’s so much more that can be said about
this one production and fact wise, but I am going to end this with a personal
tale about how much this resonated with me during my youth. I took a high school
trip to Chicago in my senior year with the art club and we ended up recreated some
of the moments from this motion picture. We stood on the rails in the Sears
Tower and put our heads against the glass to look down, even though there were
signs everywhere saying not too. We also did pretty much everything that they
did when they were at the art museum, holding hands passing certain pieces of
art and having three of us standing diagonally in front of the artwork. I
specifically knew as an artist that I had to go to this museum after watching
this movie.
This is truly a modern classic and one of
the greatest comedies ever and deserves a perfect score.
Score
-Raul Vantassle