Feeling a bit high. Dont know if it was the coffee, or the workout, or the retro rock on the internet radio. I looked out the window from my elliptical bike - its a sunny, leafy, restful late morning. Restless, my mind starting drifting as Kokomo played, and when Twist and Shout came on, it had definitely escaped.
Every teenage boy is a philosopher. Ferris Bueller believes in occasionally slowing down, looking around to see what it’s all really about, ’’for life moves pretty fast, and if you’re not careful, you might miss it’’.
Spring comes to a little suburb near Chicago. It is Ferris Bueller’s last year in high school, and in a few weeks they’ll graduate and move on to different things. He’s determined to take one perfect last day off, to play hookey, and to experience the things in life that are more essential than boring classes. But he’s skipped 9 days of school already, and this time, dean Rooney is watching.
For Ferris is the class joker and general wise guy. Where others bend to the rules of the establishment, all year long he’s been bending them, building up a following, undermining teachers, and incredibly getting away with it every single time. All year long, he’s been dodging Dean Rooney, who’s got it in for him personally. Rooney is just waiting and hoping for luck to turn against Ferris, that he’s caught, for once, putting Ferris in his mercy. And while his parents are convinced Ferris is a righteous dude, the rest of the world know better.
The rest of movie we’re watching Ferris gleefully rig up devious contraptions to fool his parents and Rooney into thinking he’s home sick in bed, finessing best friend Cameron into borrowing his anal dad’s antique red GT 250, getting girlfriend Sloan and Cameron out of class with fake phone calls and dead grandmothers, and finally driving the Ferrari at breakneck speed to see the Big City and whoop it up. Twist and Shout is featured in a Chicago parade, with Ferris singing it to thousands.
Life is short, live it up. Do whatever you need to do - never mind the consequences. And in the process, the fellas learn a few things. Ferris continues to finger the establishment, Cameron grows a spine to defy his oppressive parents and ’’kills’’ the car, and Jeannie gets over being a sore loser.
Matthew Broderick goes down in movie history as the most radiantly perfect casting ever as Ferris, the quintessential irrepressible know-all teenager out on a skip. Some rarely experienced comic genius painted as unforgettable and familiar types - Jeffrey Jones as the dean Ed Rooney, snarly, cunning yet outmanoevred and plagued by bad luck at every turn. Alan Ruck as the lanky, depressed and uptight best friend Cameron (’’if you stuck a coal up his ass, in 2 weeks you’d have a diamond’’). Alan’s mimickry and sassy comebacks of Grace the secretary are the die-laughing kind. Jennifer Gray debuts as Ferris’s sister who’s jealous of the way he gets away with murder while she gets caught with the simplest excuse. Others memorables- The eminently suspicious-looking garage attendant to whom Ferris entrusts the precious car, and the snooty head-waiter at the French restaurant where Ferris pretends to be the Sausage-King of Chicago to get a table.
Great cameos as well - a very young Charlie Sheen as an arsey dope addict who seduces Jeannie, while both are waiting to be booked in the police station. Ben Stein as the mind-numbingly boring economics teacher, people still do his hilarious nasal drone ’’Anyone, anyone?’’ at boring meetings. Kristy Swanson as the chatterbox class gossip.
Lines of this movie have become in jokes, as is the character of Ferris, among anyone who was watching movies in the 80’s. But its almost unknown over here in India-a painful situation.
A classic movie, that grows greater every time you see it, timeless in its theme, charm and humor. It takes you back to that season of your life when you felt bulletproof, and being free was the only agenda on a sunny day.