FLASHBACK BOOTH NO. 19 FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF "ONE MAN'S STRUGGLE TO TAKE IT EASY." There's a suburban estate in the American mid-west. It boast acres of manicured lawns, warehouse-sized residences and picket fences as white as the inhabitants' smiles. The owners have children that they're proud of: a blond, burgular-bashing moppet called Kevin; Pretty in Pink's kids from the right side of the tracks - and Ferris Bueller. For this is the `80s teenscape created by writer and director John Hughes. Few other movies evoke the decade that generosity forgot as vividly as Ferris Bueller's Day Off: from the hero's MTV-inspired bedroom to the frenetic Yuppie stockbrokers, it's a film that proclaims the Age Of Reagan. The premise is simple: high-school student Bueller (Matthew Broderick) pulls his ninth sickie to skip lessons, borrows a Ferrari and has a day out in Chicago with best friend Cameron and girlfriend Sloane (Alan Ruck and Mia Sara). Circumstances, along with headteacher Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) - whose struggle to brek into the Bueller home can only have inspired the Hughes-penned Home Alone- conspire to stop him. And that's it. As in the most knowing of movies, from High Noon to Do the Right Thing, the characters and action of Ferris Bueller's Day Off are pitched into the space of one frantic day. Ferris appears cocky and far too knowing - he's the eternal smary school smart-arse. But something stops us hating him. He wanted a car, but he got a computer; and he realises both he and his friends are growing up and that his high-school hedonism can't last forever. But he is also on a rescue mission: to shake Cameron from his miserabilist malaise. "He will go to one school and I'll go to another and basically that will be it," Ferris tells the camera. For Cameron is a kid who's been screwed up big-time by his family. As his best friend says: "Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass in two weeks you'd have a diamond." The jaunt across Chicago continues taking in a restaurant, baseball game, Teutonic parade and art gallery. And Ferris' plan to `save' his buddy eventually succeeds. Cameron finally freaks out at all he's witnessed falls into Sloane's swimming pool (baptismal significance, anyone, anyone?) and finally sails past caring by letting his father's prized Ferrari slice through a plate-glass wall and into a forest ravine. Ferris Bueller's Day Off works because like it's eponymous hero, it's far more perceptive that it first appears. Not only does it top a nod to British `60s comedy Alfie, with the star's easy manipulation of those around him and the straight-talking to camera, but it also presages some of the best indie flicks of the'90s. Like Clerks, it's replete with anecdotes and nuggets of pop-culture philosophy, as well as carrying a take-it-easy culture. Like Doug Liman's Swingers, it has two friends at its core, who - althought polar opposites - are both looking out for each other without dragging the movie into weak buddy-buddy territory. And just as Cameron intently stares at a small child in an impressionist painting during the gallery sequence, so Hughes realises it's the details that make the divine. He packs his film with minor, but brilliantly realised characters, to add an edge which lifts Ferris Bueller's Day Off above other, more run-of the-mill teen flicks. There's Grace (played by Edie McClurg), the dithering school secretary; the joy- riding pair of garage attendants; the most boring economics teacher known to man; and even a young Charlie Sheen as a scuzzball Casanova hanging out in a cop-shop. Lesser directors would have been tempted to elevate these minor roles unnecessarily, but Hughes plays a steady hand and never lets them interfere with the film's main focus. "It's the best day of my life," Cameron declares near the end of the movie. And it shows. THE LOST HOURS John Hughes' original script for Ferris Bueller's Day Off contains many unused elements and scenes. Here's a taste of what could have been. * The Bueller family also includes a seven-year-old brother called Todd and a 12-year-old sister called Kimberly * Ferris announces on radio that he'll be the first youth from Chicago to travel in the space shuttle as "my input on the Star Wars defense program plan was pretty substantial". * There is an anecdote about how to deal with touchy draft-dodging hippies * Ferris recreates the climactic truck smash in Mad Max 2, pretending to be a Humungus by using a lounge chair and wearing a hockey mask. * He meets one of his mother's co-workers, introducing Sloane as his wife Madonna and Cameron as "my brother-in-law ZZ Top. ZZ, this is Mrs Froeling." * The friends visit a stip club, where Ferris gets up on stage and does an Elvis impression, singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? * The art gallery was originally a museum, with different exhibits. EASY RIDER Forget Socrates, Voltaire or all those other furrow-browed, beard- scratching thinker-types: If you want to get by in life with the minimum of effort, the only philosopher worth boning up on is Ferris Bueller... BELIEVE IN YOURSELF: This is the first - and most important - tenet of Buellerism. Everything else extends from his credo of self-belief. Only somebody with an utter conviction in what they were doing could get away with as much as Ferris does. He in turn quotes John Lennon, citing the dead Beatle's comment about not believing in Jesus or the Fab Four, but only in himself. "A good point there," reflects Bueller (who's just explained why he'll never be a European socialist). "After all, he was the walrus." Ferris: "Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive." MAKE GOOD YOUR BURDEN: So Ferris landed a computer instead of a car. And yes, he moans about it. But he uses the object of his misfortune to flummox Principal Rooney by hacking into the school system and reducing the number of days he's registered sick - while the headteacher watches. Ferris also relies on phones, answer-machines and tapes - be it at home or even in a swanky restaurant - to fool those not in the know. Ferris: "I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?" GET WHEELS: Like any other teenager, Ferris realises that cars equal freedom, taking every opportunity to sing the praises of the automobile to both the camera and Cameron. The shot of him lowering himself into the Ferrari for the first time is like watching a yuppie enjoying his post- Lollapalooza soak. But any car will do, even Cameron's; as Ferris tells him: "I don't even have a piece of shit, I have to envy yours." Ferris (on the Ferrari): "I love driving it. It is so choice. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up." LOOK OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS: "I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for you," Ferris tells Cameron at one stage. It's a point he makes time and time again to his disbelieving best friend - and by the end of the day you realise that he's right. He could so easily have borrowed Cameron's dad's car, given his mate the slip and shot off with Sloane in tow. But he chooses not to, convinced that he can give Cameron the life-shaking wake- up call he so desperately needs. Ferris: "Cameron, what have you seen today?" Cameron: "Nothing good." Ferris: "What do you mean, `Nothing good? We've seen everything good! We've seen the whole city!" ENJOY LIFE: Taking time out and smelling the roses is the whole driving force behind Bueller's day off. As the Wham! T-shirts proclaimed at the time, Ferris chooses life. He could have hung round the pool all day: instead he takes the risk of getting caught and opts for an excursion into Chicago. He also embraces the finer elements of life, cleverly blagging his way into an upmarket restaurant and opting for the `untouchable' Ferrari over his friend's beat-up car. Cameron: "Ferris, my father enjoys this cars more than life itself." Ferris: "A man with priorities so far out of whack doesn't deserve such a fine automobile." OUTGUESS YOUR OPPONENT: Ferris knows Rooney will suspect he's playing hookey. And he knows his adversary knows that he wants to get Sloane out of school. Thus he has Cameron place a phone callas Sloane's father. Rooney hurls insults down the line, thinking it's Ferris - and is caught off balance when his nemesis rings up at the same time on another line, casually asking about homework. Bueller also resists over-playing the sickie, and so avoids ending up at the doctor's surgery. Ferris (to his parents while faking illness): "I have a test today. I have to take it. I want to go to a good college so I can have a fruitful life." CREDITS USA, 1986 Director.................................JOHN HUGHES Screenplay...............................JOHN HUGHES Cinematography..........................TAK FUJIMOTO Film Editing.............................PAUL HIRSCH CAST Ferris Bueller.....................MATTHEW BRODERICK Cameron Frye...............................ALAN RUCK Sloane Peterson.............................MIA SARA Ed Rooney..............................JEFFREY JONES Jeanie Bueller.........................JENNIFER GREY Katie Bueller..........................CINDY PICKETT Tom Bueller...............................LYMAN WARD Boy in Police Station..................CHARLIE SHEEN Economics Teacher..........................BEN STEIN Student (Simone)......................KRISTY SWANSON Grace...................................EDIE MCCLURG Garage Attendant.......................RICHARD EDSON Maitre D'...........................JONATHAN SCHMOCK Article written by Nick Hunt (c) Future Publising 1998