Ferris Bueller's Day Off

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"Ferris Bueller" redirects here. For the member of German techno band Scooter by the same name, see Scooter.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Image:Ferrisdayoff.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Hughes
Produced by John Hughes
Tom Jacobson
Written by John Hughes
Starring Matthew Broderick
Alan Ruck
Mia Sara
Jeffrey Jones
Jennifer Grey
Edie McClurg
Music by Ira Newborn
Arthur Baker
John Robie
Cinematography Tak Fujimoto
Editing by Paul Hirsch
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 11 1986
Running time 102 min
Country Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Language English
Budget 6 million
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 comedy film written and directed by John Hughes who is a graduate of Glenbrook North High School where many of the movie scenes were filmed. It stars Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones and Jennifer Grey. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986.

The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller (Broderick), who, one spring day (after eight previous absences throughout the semester; nine total including this "day off"), decides to skip school again and spend the day in downtown Chicago with his girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Sara) and his best friend Cameron Frye (Ruck) while creatively avoiding his school's dean of students (Jones), his resentful younger sister Jeanie (Grey), and his parents. Bueller frequently breaks the fourth wall to explain to the audience his techniques and thoughts. In the opening scene, graphics appear onscreen illustrating his explanations.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is an irreverent high school senior from the fictional northern Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois (in reality, Northbrook, Illinois, a town which was originally named Shermerville [1]), who decides to skip school (Glenbrook North High School, additional scenes filmed at the then closed Maine North High School) for a day on the town by pretending to be sick. We later learn that he has done this many times throughout the school year. He convinces his nervous hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to take his father's carefully restored 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California out for a spin, although Cameron's father has memorized the car's mileage. Ferris promises to erase any miles they put on the car by driving the car home in reverse. Looking at the number plate on the Ferrari it says NRVOUS "nervous" which is exactly how Cameron reacted when Ferris even mentioned taking the car out for a spin. Masquerading as her father, Ferris springs his younger girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), from school on the premise that her grandmother has died.

Meanwhile, school dean of students, Edward Rooney, (Jeffrey Jones) doesn’t believe Ferris’ illness, as he has been tracking Ferris' many absences from school on his computer. Ferris remotely deletes these absences from the computer while Rooney watches helplessly. Lacking proof of the truancy, he sets out to catch him in the act, suffering injuries and humiliation in his quest. Ferris leaks a rumor to some freshmen that he is near-terminally ill, and he becomes the town's favorite son. A campaign by the students to "Save Ferris" is a running joke throughout the film. His sister, Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), is outraged at Ferris's ability to defy authority unpunished and becomes as determined as Rooney to prove that her brother is lying. Her efforts lead to her being home when Rooney visits the house, which she misinterprets as an attempt to attack her, leading to her going to the police. At the police station, she meets an attractive delinquent (Charlie Sheen) who tells her that she should get on with enjoying her life and stop resenting her brother.

The three friends enjoy a baseball game at Wrigley Field and dine at an elite restaurant (with Ferris posing as Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago). Cameron and Sloane watch in awe as Ferris sneaks onto a float during the Von Steuben Day Parade to lip-sync "Danke Schoen" and The Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout". They also enjoy the view from the top of the Sears Tower and visit the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Trade. In one of several running jokes, Ferris narrowly avoids meeting his father a few times. However, while the friends enjoy their day, two parking attendants borrow the Ferrari and take it on their own adventures, running up mileage dramatically in the process.

When the trio retrieve the car and Cameron spies the odometer reading, he enters a catatonic state. They return to Cameron's house, where Ferris and Sloane sit in the hot tub trying to figure out how to bring Cameron back to reality. Ferris muses to the audience about how little time is left in the school year and his concerns for Cameron's and Sloane's futures. Cameron does recover, but decides to scare his friends by falling into the pool. Ferris rescues him, feeling briefly angry and then relieved. Cameron laughs at him and reveals that he was faking it with the sarcastic quote "Ferris Bueller, you're my hero."

Ferris attempts in vain to reverse the Ferrari's mileage. Realizing that he will be caught, Cameron's rage comes to a head when he realizes how much contempt he has for his father. He realizes that his father cares more for the car than for his son. Cameron takes his rage out on the car by kicking dents in to the bumper and the front of the hood.

He finally calms down. He sees the minor damage that he has caused and accepts that he will now be forced to explain to his father what he did and why. He feels a weight lifted with the prospect of finally dealing with his father's coldness and distance.

However, the car remained in reverse throughout the beating and when Cameron rested his foot on the front bumper one last time, the car fell off the jack and burst through the plate glass window in the back of the sterile garage, landing with a crash at the bottom of a ravine. Ferris offers to take the blame since Cameron's father hates him anyway, but Cameron decides it is time to stand up to his father.

Ferris sees Sloane home and realizes that he is late and begins dashing home. The audience's last view of Sloane as Ferris disappears out of her view, shows her thinking out loud to herself that she will marry him someday.

The action returns to Ferris running through neighbors' backyards and hopping fences in an attempt to get home before his parents catch him out of the house. He arrives back home and narrowly escapes Rooney, thanks to Jeanie, who thanks Rooney for driving Ferris home from the hospital. Jeanie then reveals that Rooney left his wallet on the kitchen floor during his earlier visit, leaving Rooney with a vicious dog. Ferris manages to get into bed in time for his parents to check on him. The closing credits play beside scenes of Rooney receiving jeers and odd looks while riding the school bus. At a point during this scene, A girl sitting next to him offers a "gummy bear" claiming that they have been in her pocket and they're "real warm and soft". Rooney looks depressed and sickened as she says "Bet you never smelled a real school bus before". After the credits scroll, we see Ferris expressing his astonishment that the audience hasn't left the theater; Ferris then commands everyone to accept that the movie has ended and beseeches them to go home.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critique

The film was received well by most critics. Famed movie critic Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars. More recently, it was referred to as "a truly great movie, mainly because it is one of the few comedies that doesn't try to teach you a life lesson." It has a "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, having an aggregated critical film review score of 83%. This movie ranked number 10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. The film was featured in the VH1 television show I Love the 80s which aired in 2002.

Broderick was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1987 for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

[edit] Rankings

As an influential and popular film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off has been included in many film rating lists. This film is number 54 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies", and came 26th in the British 50 Greatest Comedy Films poll.

The film was short-listed by the American Film Institute as part of the AFI 100 Years... series celebration in the category of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Ferris Bueller's Day Off the 23rd greatest comedy film of all time, and in 2005 an Empire magazine article declared Ferris Bueller's Day Off the number one teen film of all time.

[edit] Box office

The film opened in 1,330 theaters in the United States and had a total weekend gross of $6,275,647, opening in second position to another teen comedy, Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off's total gross in the United States was approximately $70 million.[citation needed] It subsequently became the 10th highest grossing film of 1986. Compared to the lean budget of $6 million, it was viewed as a big success.[1]

[edit] Music

Songs featured in the film include:

  1. "Love Missile F1-11" (Extended Version) by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
  2. "Jeannie" (theme from I Dream of Jeannie)
  3. "Beat City" by The Flowerpot Men
  4. "Star Wars (Main Title)" by John Williams
  5. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (instrumental) by The Dream Academy (a cover of a song by The Smiths)
  6. "Danke Schoen" by Wayne Newton
  7. "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles (which charted again, 16 years after the Beatles broke up, as a result of its appearance in this movie (and a cover version by Rodney Dangerfield in his movie Back To School, which was released the same weekend as FBDO). It reached #23 in the U.S. Its parent album, The Early Beatles, would also rechart at #197). The version heard in the film includes brass overdubbed onto the original backing track, which did not go down well with Paul McCartney. (This is explained by Hughes on the DVD commentary.)
  8. "Radio People" by Zapp
  9. "I'm Afraid" by Blue Room
  10. "Taking the Day Off" by General Public
  11. "The Edge of Forever" by The Dream Academy
  12. "March of the Swivelheads" (a remix of "Rotating Head") by The (English) Beat
  13. "Oh Yeah" by Yello
  14. "BAD" by Big Audio Dynamite

No soundtrack was ever released for the film, as director John Hughes felt the songs would not work well together as a continuous album.

[edit] DVD Releases

The film has been released on DVD twice - the original DVD release, and the newer Bueller... Bueller... Edition. The original DVD, like most Paramount films released on DVD for the first time, had very few bonus features. It did, however, feature a commentary by Hughes. The later release has several more bonus featurettes, but does not contain the commentary track the earlier DVD release had.

[edit] Filming locations

[edit] Legacy

Since the movie's release, numerous references and spin-offs have occurred.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Bueller Bueller Edition

[edit] External links

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Ferris Bueller's Day Off
v • d • e
John Hughes
As DirectorSixteen Candles (1984)  · The Breakfast Club (1985)  · Weird Science (1985)  · Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)  · Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)  · She's Having a Baby (1988)  · Uncle Buck (1989)  · Curly Sue (1991)
As WriterNational Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982)  · Mr. Mom (1983)  · National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)  · Nate and Hayes (1983)  · Sixteen Candles (1984)  · The Breakfast Club (1985)  · Weird Science (1985)  · Pretty in Pink (1986)  · Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)  · Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)  · Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)  · She's Having a Baby (1988)  · The Great Outdoors (1988)  · Uncle Buck (1989)  · Christmas Vacation (1989)  · Home Alone (1990)  · Career Opportunituies (1991)  · Dutch (1991)  · Curly Sue (1991)  · Beethoven (1992)  · Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)  · Dennis the Menace (1993)  · Baby's Day Out (1994)  · Miracle on 34th Street (1994)  · 101 Dalmatians (1996)  · Flubber (1997)  · Home Alone 3 (1997)  · Reach the Rock (1998)  · Just Visiting (2001)  · Maid in Manhattan (2002)
v • d • e
Image:United States film.png American films of the 1980s
1980 •1981 •1982 •1983 •1984 •1985 •1986 •1987 •1988 •1989
de:Ferris macht blau

es:Todo en un día fr:La Folle Journée de Ferris Bueller he:שמתי ברז למורה nl:Ferris Bueller's Day Off ja:フェリスはある朝突然に nds:Ferris Bueller’s Day Off pt:Ferris Bueller's Day Off ru:Феррис Бьюллер берёт выходной (фильм) sv:Fira med Ferris zh:咪走堂

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