80s Movies: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Ah Ferris Bueller's Day Off, now here's a classic 80s movie if ever there was one. The story of one man's struggle to take it easy, to quote the tagline on the posters, was a massive success in 1986, and has gone on to become a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of fun-loving, anti-authoritarian slackers everywhere.

Strangely I don't think I saw this movie until atleast 2003 when was at university, so I can't really blame it for my own lazy, work-shy approach to life, the seeds of which were certainly already in place by the age of 18 (don't you just hate when you can't pin all your personal shortcomings on popular culture). Anyway, when I did see it I had high expectations, and I was absolutely not disappointed.

Writer and director John Hughes made this movie coming off the back of successes with The Breakfast Club and Weird Science in 1985, and was already a hot property in Hollywood. He wrote Ferris Bueller as a tribute to his native Chicago, and with Matthew Broderick (Wargames) already in mind for the title character. Broderick was 23 at the time of filming, but had the young looks and innocent boyish smile to pull off the role of charming high-school truant with aplomb.