This is a series I have wanted to do for a while. I have seen several movies more than a dozen times, and when it gets to that level, I can usually let them play in the background like music. But every now and then, I'll sit back and actually watch the movie and take in things I never really thought about or noticed before. I hope to cover some of my favorites or most watched here, and maybe my observations will mirror yours.
And thus, I start the series with the movie that made parents wise up to the tricks my generation tried to pull to skip school, or why the shower head makes an ideal practice mic: Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Ferris's establishing scene has him pulling some odd sick trick on his parents, and like the idiots they are, they buy it. My mother would have told me to suck it up and go to school anyway. She said something similar when I broke my tailbone when I was 14. In this same establishing scene, we meet Jeannie, his eternally menstrual older sister. It's not so much that Jeannie is jealous of Ferris as much as she's just the average teenager, blaming her parents for everything wrong in th world. Looking back, Jeannie needed her own spinoff series. Maybe Daria could have been her best friend...
Once everyone goes to school and work (notice both Ben Stein and Kristy Swanson in early roles), Ferris decides to recruit his BFF, Cameron, for his day of truancy. He already knows Cameron will be home because he knows Cameron's neuroses makes him sick. And unlike his own parents, who are just easily fooled, Cameron's parents probably just don't give a shit. Incidentally, as a direct result of Cameron's establishing scene, I actually did think coal made diamonds for many years. Forgive me.
When we meet the principal, Mr. Rooney, we see a man who takes his job and his battle with one individual student way too seriously. Remind you of another John Hughes high school principal? It's the battle between Ferris and Mr. Rooney that would be the surface plot, the cat and mouse game that drives the plot of the story. Unlike Principal Vernon in the Breakfast Club, Mr. Rooney isn't as concerned with impressing his students as he is winning his battle with the most popular boy in school. He claims he wants to set the example to all the kids who look up to Ferris, but even if the other kids didn't care, he'd still fight Ferris. What is he trying to prove, other than his significance in the school heirarchy? He isn't trying to convince anyone other than Ferris that he can win their individual battle. It's a theme that John Hughes carries through many of his stories. The adults are often threatened by the emergence of the Gen-Xers, who, as Vernon puts it, will be taking care of them in the very near future, and that thought is scary.
Before Ferris and Cameron can successfully pick up Sloan, possibly the hottest high school girlfriend EVER, we see why Ferris is so damn cool. How many of us tried to find or make software with bodily functions to fool parents? How many of us thought we could break into the school's computer from our homes? How many of us have tried to call the school with a fake voice to get our friends out of class? (No, I didn't do that last one. How dare.)
When the three of them finally make their break from the school, hilarity truly ensues. They take their classic Ferrari to downtown Chicago and park it in a public garage. If us future drivers learned anything from this scene, it's to never trust a guy who practically ejaculates at the sight of your car to watch over it, even if your car is a faded brown 1986 Dodge Colt hatchback. Ahem... Their first stop, a fancy lunch at Chez Qui. Ferris manages to convince the snooty host that he's Abe Frohman, the Sausage King of Chicago. Wouldn't you think Ferris could have thought a little more quickly on his feet and claimed to be his son? That's probably what I would have done, considering the host and/or manager would have sat Mr. Frohman several times and would have known who he was. I also would have thought the host would have enforced the jacket and tie rule at the restaurant, which every other customer seems to abide by. Then again, I bet the little mix-up resulted in complimentary lunch for the three of them, since I bet that lunch cost them at least $40 per plate, and none of them had that kind of money on them.
One thing I took from this scene was Ferris's declaration that if he was going to get in trouble, it would not be by a guy like that host. I carry that sentiment with me to this day. At times when I have felt like I was about to lose it and have my day be ruined, I thought about whether I was willing to lose an entire day to that particular person. When I realize I am not about to let a particular person ruin all of it for me, I carry on. Thanks, Ferris!
Next, on to the ball park for the Cubs game. Wouldn't it just happen to be that most of us go to games faithfully every season and never catch a fly ball, despite being in both fly and foul zones, yet this punk catches one on the day he ditches class? Incidentally, Saved by the Bell would rip this scene off years later when Zack pretends to be Jewish to skip school (Belding was an idiot), catches a foul at the Dodgers game, and gets blackmailed by Jessie's new brother to get a date with Lisa. Don't ask how I know this.
There are also really nice moments which can be like a picture postcard for Chicago. They visit the museum, the Sears tower, the stock exchange, and Michigan Avenue. I've never been to Chicago, and when this movie came out I was living in Hawaii, so I thought this was the coolest thing ever. Of course, I didn't know the difference between New York City and Chicago as far as big cities went, so I am equally obsessed with visiting both cities to this day.
During this time, Mr. Rooney decides the safety and well-being of every other student in the school is less important than breaking and entering into Ferris's house. Unfortunately, Jeannie is home, not caring less what she's missing in school. She meets an intruder (not realizing it's Rooney), delivers a swift kick to the nose, then calls the police. She knows he's still in the house and warns him she has herpes. Unfortunately shit continues to rain on Jeannie, and she gets arrested for filing a false police report.
Then we get to the scene which, for me, turns the movie from entertaining to silly, and that's the parade. I thought it would be fun and exciting to join in a parade, but not in my own concert scene as though it were planned for me. Even when I had this movie on VHS, I would fast forward through this scene. Even today, I don't care for "Twist and Shout," especially since it reminds me of this lame scene.
When Ferris and the gang pick up the car, life as Cameron knows it is over. He has is nervous breakdown for a few minutes, but seeing Sloan's boobies gets him out of that rut. But it's when the miles are not coming off the car that Cameron finally decides that his life isn't working for him anymore, and in his symbolic rebirth, he destroys the car, the one thing his father loves more than his own son. It's catastrophic and frightening when the car goes over the edge, but it's the understanding that nothing can be done about it, the day is finished, that really brings everything home. Cameron just had the best day of his life, and crashing that beautiful car, which should have been devastating, is poetic for him.
As all great days must come to an end, Ferris and the gang have to head home in time to get back to bed before the parents find him. Jeannie gets picked up from her mother at the police station and literally run into Ferris trying to make it home. The race is on, and Jeannie further pisses off her mother by speeding through the neighborhood to get home. And when she does, she finds Rooney's wallet on the kitchen floor. This is when she realizes Rooney was the man who broke into her house. All of a sudden, she has something far more exciting to look forward to than busting her brother, and that's screwing the principal over. Seriously, what could Rooney do to her for the rest of her high school career that she couldn't pull the breaking-and-entering card on? To top it off, she feeds the wallet and Rooney himself to their Rotweiler. Ahh, sweet justice. Of course, she realizes she could never have that satisfaction if Ferris hadn't ditched school in the first place, and she forgives him.
This movie is about living in the moment, and the theme applies to everyone. Though Ferris is the main character, this movie is really Cameron's story as told from Ferris's point of view. Ferris as a person is not that interesting of a character. Where is his conflict? He has his parents wrapped around his finger, every kid in school likes him, he has a very hot girlfriend, and he really doesn't care what Rooney thinks. Even Sloan, who we never really get to know in depth, is just an accessory character.
The real story lies in Cameron. I heard it summed up perfectly once: Cameron is going through his mid-life crisis prematurely. He is the oldest teenager on the planet (sorry, Dick Clark). He's destroyed by the thought of rubbing his parents the wrong way even once. He is miserable, and would probably have gone through the rest of his life miserable. Ferris is his alter-ego. Ferris is the person who does everything Cameron has ever wanted to do but has been shut down by his parents before getting the chance to. In the art museum, Cameron sees himself in the Georges Seurat painting, and he sees himself as a kid in the exact same way - nothing but paint and pixels, not a real kid. Destroying the car was the last step to shaking Cameron out of his misery. He probably would have gone to college, never making any new friends or girlfriends, and lived a short, miserable life. If Cameron were among the students in detention in "The Breakfast Club," what do you think he would have done to get there? Would it have been more severe than bringing a gun to school (albeit a flare gun)? Would a romp in the hay with the weirdo have cured him? It's an interesting thought...
"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" will always be one of the best high school movies ever, and one of the best movies of my generation. But it's watching the movie as an adult that makes me appreciate it even more. If Cameron did exist, I hope he got everything he wanted in the end.
