The Story Archive

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

John Hughes · 1986 CE · Film · Modern / American · Contemporary

A high-school senior fakes a fever, springs his girlfriend and his miserable best friend, and takes the friend's father's Ferrari into Chicago for a day of galleries, ballparks and a German-American parade, explaining his method to the camera as he goes. The dean of students, certain he is being played, spends the day trying to catch him out of bed. Hughes's escape fantasy became the decade's most quoted comedy.

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Attributes

Genre
ComedyComing-of-AgeSatire
Theme
Freedom vs FateIndividual vs SocietyComing of Age
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
TricksterAlly / CompanionThreshold Guardian
Plot structure
Single DayPicaresqueMetafiction
Symbol / motif
The CityThe MachineThe Mask
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
ComicSatiricalMetafictional
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues