[…] The 1986 ultimate skip-school teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was quite the graduation ceremony for both screenwriter/director/producer John Hughes and lead actor Matthew Broderick. Ferris would become Broderick’s final adolescent character, matriculating into the cinematic campus of 20-somethings closer to his own age. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off would also be the last time John Hughes would permanently park his director’s chair into high school hallways, aiming his Chicago-based cameras at adult issues with …read more […]

well done. as much as i'd like to believe that he wrote it over a weekend, oh, what the hell, sure.

Hughes was famously a fast writer, and I think for this script, he wrote it because there was about to be a writer's strike so he had no choice but to get the whole thing out and start shooting, but like Planes Trains and Automobiles, there's chunks of the film that are cut out that make it better (Ferris' younger siblings never show up, his dog isn't introduced until late in the movie, and Charlie Sheen apparently was the son of "The Vermont People"). Now I don't doubt Hughes' speed, because I know he didn't come up with the idea on the spot, and I think that's what a lot of people think when they hear that. Hughes had a youthful sensibility and did a ton of research, took lots of notes, I'm willing to bet he did a ton of prep work so that when he knew there was an idea worth following through on, he could just sit down and do it. Ferris Bueller seems to be almost the opposite of every high schooler trope that ever popped up in a movie. Basically, "what if some kid beat the system?" Total wish fulfillment. And while the movie follows him, he's really not the one who goes through an emotional journey, that would be Cameron. Ferris is almost like Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life, he's the guide that allows for a broken character to go on this journey (there's a reason for the theory that Ferris is Cameron's imaginary friend). The movie smartly follows Ferris as if he were the protagonist to tell us that youth is meant to be fun, exciting, and full of possibility. Most high school movies start on the identifiable "this is real" and "kids have problems" opening, but this movie decides to start on a high note and keep building. You know, I wish I could remember who made this observation, but someone pointed out once upon a time that Ferris lacks any sort of label, it's important that he would go to both a ball game AND an art museum. He gets a computer when they weren't cool and learns how to use it to paint naked women and change his record. He plays multiple musical instruments (not well... okay, he HAS multiple musical instruments). It might be saying a bit too much to say he finds the good in everything, but if that's the case, you can see why he's so popular, he likes so much stuff he can find common ground with anyone ("geeks, spazoids, dweebies, dickheads, they all adore him... they think he's a righteous dude.") I remember a few years ago when there was this talk about someone somewhere writing a spec Ferris Bueller sequel, and while everyone shot down that idea, there was already a kind of brilliant Ferris Bueller prequel made called "Charlie Bartlett," with Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey Jr. Obviously it's not marketed as such (and I don't think the idea ever crossed anyone's mind), but it shows how a regular kid could become so widely beloved and accepted.