Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Movie Review

Genre – Teen/Comedy
Length – 1hr 43mins
Released in – 1986
My Overall Grading – 3 Stars

”Life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!’

Each and every movie has one main aim – to make the viewer feel something. There is always one single encompassing idea, perspective, or state of mind towards which the plot-line itself takes you, even though most of the time, this is sold to the audience subconsciously, in that it underlies the film’s story-line or characterization, rather than being wholly apparent as one concrete whole.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) was written expressly for Matthew Broderick and is a pretty easy movie to summerize. Basically: a charming teen decides to flunk school because he has a test, and convinces his best friend and his girlfriend to spend the day with him roaming the town instead.

Pretty simple right? You’d think that’s all there was to it. Well… yes and no.

I was always fascinated by the kind of character Ferris, that is Matthew Broderick, portrays. This is the kind of character who has, it seems, been blessed by the ancient gods with such good fortune, that anything and everything he does turns out well. No matter how many rules he breaks, how many people he manipulates, how many blatant self-serving lies he tells (always with a charming smile and a rakish attitude of course), he never gets to face the music. And believe me, these people exist. It’s just unfortunate that I am not one of them.

Apart from the amusing foibles our characters go through, and the hilarious contribution to the cast given by the uniquely endowed Jeffrey Jones (his face is the epitome of all asshole-ish headmasters), one cannot but note the rest of the amazing cast. Most of the main actors seem in fact to actually represent my favorite iconic 80s movies. Apart from Broderick himself (Wargames, Ladyhawke), there’s Mia Sara (Legend) who plays his love interest, Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) as his older sister, Alan Ruck (Bad Boys) is his bestie, Ben Stein (Ghostbusters II, The Wonder Years, MacGyver) as his teacher, the aforementioned Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice) is his headmaster, Lyman Ward (A Nightmare on Elm Street) plays the role of his father, and even Charlie Sheen makes a short appearance. Could any other cast have been more perfect for an 80s movie?

Apart from that, it tickles me no end to know that the interior hallway scenes for Ferris’ school were filmed at Maine North High School – the same place where John Hughes’ iconic movie The Breakfast Club was also filmed. This school also features in 16 Candles and Pretty In Pink!

So what happens when Ferris fakes sick to escape taking his test? What doesn’t happen! Amidst fancy brunches, romantic smooches, coming-of-age battles, wild joyrides, street parades, dips in the pool, and amusing tirades, we find ourselves asking – how many hours are there in a day? How does the errant trio manage to do all that stuff in such a short time? And this brings us to the crux idea of the movie.

Life is short. Enjoy it!!!

Conclusion: This movie was fun… BUT it wasn’t memorable, in that there were no deep characters, underlying issues or actual emotional scenes or feelings between characters. It’s a very light-hearted film, perfect if you just want to relax with a no-brainer and a couple of easy laughs.

Bad Boys, Dynamite and Psychotic Lust

This weekend I re-watched one of my fav 80s Dark Comedies, Winona Ryder’s ‘Heathers’ (1988), where apart from teen angst and high school bullying, we get to see the demise of yet another bitchy cheerleader (yay!), a couple of jock bullies (yippie yay), as well as the sexy bad boy whom personally I would have done anything for (boo-hoo).

Awww come on admit it, we just love these characters don’t we? Yes, the guy is terminally and technically psychotic, I mean, he WAS a murderer, manipulator and schizzo, and he DID want to blow up the whole school, but considering that most of the students were assholes and that he was right on all accounts, not to mention sexy and slick as hell, how can one not sympathize?!

Yes, yes, yes, I have a soft spot for Christian Slater – does it really show so much? ;p

Apart from that – now be honest, who didn’t want to kill a couple of people and blow his/her own high school shitty life sky-high a couple of times right? So, yes I totally understand the guy, and if it had been me instead of Winona (Veronica), I’d definitely have been the very enthusiastic Bonnie to his Clyde.

The three ‘Heathers’ for whom the film is called were 3 stupid bimbos who could have given today’s ‘Mean Girls’, ‘Pretty Little Liars’, ‘Gossip Girls’ and all the other hellcats a real run for their money. I love to watch high school power play in general, but manipulative bitchy girls are so much worse than your usual dumbo jock waving his dick around stuffing nerds into lockers aren’t they? And when they finally get their comeuppance, I cant help but cheer, shriek, laugh, snigger and drool with happiness. I hate these kind of girls with a passion, mostly because in my time as a teen at school I was one of those nerds myself, and though I wasn’t stuffed in any lockers, I was treated badly in other ways by girls who thought they were gods’ gift, just because they had money to buy certain stuff, put on make up, and already had been going out with boys and making out at 13. Well, guess what? Most of them didn’t pass their graduation at all, and more than half were already single mothers by their 15th year. I, on the other hand, was in University when I was still 2 months shy of my 16th birthday.

*snigger*snigger* Sorry, but this IS a personal blog and I AM ENTITLED to looking back and seeing some stuff now that I am a ‘grown up’. So there! ;p

P.S What on earth happened to Winona Ryder btw? Haven’t seen her in a new movie in ages 😦