Most teen comedies find themselves balancing on the tightrope between reality and fantasy, often giving into a more pragmatic resolution out of a sense of moral duty, feeling a responsibility to warn their young audience that it's not all parties and platitudes. But not Ferris Bueller. No sir. From start to finish, Ferris Bueller's Day Off soaks in the fantastical, letting Bueller galavant around town in every teenager's idyllic version of a sick day. Does it matter that it's logistically impossible for the high school senior to do everything we saw him do throughout the day? Not a bit. This is fantasy. There's no place for that kind of rational thinking here. Of course, the film utilizes Bueller's best friend, Cameron, as the movie's logical compass, tempering all of the grandiose ambitions with his Debbie Downer routine. But even by the film's end, when Cameron literally kicks his father's expensive car right out of a window and sends it crashing dozens of feet to the ground, that doesn't break the fantasy. It heightens it. Because dammit, this is a day free of worry. A day to commandeer parades and eat at an impossibly expensive restaurant and accomplish more in a single day than most kids do over the course of four years. Most importantly it's a day to stop and look around for a while. Because life moves pretty fast. And if you don't, you might miss it.
