Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

As antic as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is, it’s really a film about boredom. For all the money and stuff they have, teenage suburbanites are horrifically bored most of the time. The extroverts, like Ferris, deal with it by acting out. The introverts, like Alan Ruck’s Cameron, react with depression and anxiety, which Hughes thankfully plays for comedy. But when Cameron’s stares at a pointillist painting until it becomes something completely unrecognizable, it’s suddenly clear that he is the real voice of the movie, paralyzed by childhood and tortuously waiting for it to end. Ferris is funny and all, but he’s kind of a jerk and probably won’t amount to much after high school ends. Cameron, on the other hand, will have a successful career in the movies and possibly become the voice of a generation. Or something like that.