30 years of Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I loved Ferris Bueller’s day off when I was growing up. I didn’t relate to any of the characters at a more personal level but I do think that the sibling relationships, as written from the point of how it feels when you are a teen, was well done and what anchored a movie that otherwise may not have had as much of an impact. For as much as we want to be Ferris I think it is from the sister that we get that as much as anywhere else. We would like to be that golden boy of course, but on a realistic day, we just don’t want to be the one playing by the rules and seeing someone else succeed and thrive while coasting/cheating their way to the top. Everybody knows someone or is related to someone, where that seems to be what happens for them and I think that is the in for making the audience want to be Ferris, his life just seems easier and less complicated than yours. In must be nice to be the piece of bread that keeps landing butter side up no matter how many times it seems to hurl itself at the floor. I think we all crave that as much as the fun that he has that most others would end up getting caught out at.

Ferris is a cacophony of youth. The glorification of the amazing days you have as high school comes to an end, I think the biggest thing the movie missed was that these days come charged with electricity no matter what or who you are and even if you don’t hijak a parade, steal a parents car, scheme your way into a great restaurant (or do amazing travel, have a boyfriend/girlfriend etc.) those days and moments will still happen, still be amazing, shape you whether you intended that to happen or not, and still be just as important when you look back at that time in your life. In many cases the little moments may have shaped you more and be more important to you when you look back on things. I wish the movie captured that better because outside of the museum sequence and the part at the end where they are at that look-out I think it completely misses it, and there it seems to only briefly go to that weird nothingness so full of something that the days are packed with. It captures the nothingness you are so despertly trying to turn into something meaningful or important without the awareness to show it has meaning without the big gestures or events.

It’s a movie about being young for the young and as much as I do love it for that and also for adding to what I expected high school or life to be like, I really doubt it would be one I would sit down and get much out of if I was watching for the first time now. Because you don’t have to talk to many adults to realize best moments are rarely the ones you could have anticipated being so ahead, and even less likely the more you try to force them.

So happy 30^th Anniversary Ferris, (Cameron, and Sloan). I hope life has treated you well.