Tracking the exploits of high-school student Ferris and his two friends as they skip school to instead slack-off around Chicago, John Hughes’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has become an archetypal teen movie with great comic set-pieces, an iconic car and an even more memorable title character.
Performances are spot-on and characterisation is surprisingly rich for a film of this genre. Alan Ruck, as Ferris’s depressed and neglected best friend helps to provide us with much of the film’s more touching moments whilst Jeffrey Jones is a laugh-riot as a suspicious Dean out to get them. However, this is Matthew Broderick’s film as he simply oozes charm and charisma in this career-defining role as the supremely confident title character.
Undoubtedly some will have trouble rooting for such an arrogant little tick but perhaps to hate Ferris is to misunderstand the film for behind its rebellious and zany exterior lies a sweet and caring heart with an important message encouraging you to simply embrace life once in a while.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), directed by John Hughes, is released on blu-ray disc and DVD in the UK by Paramount Home Entertainment, Certificate 15.
