There are those of course who will declare The Breakfast Club as the triumphant apex of John Hughes' teen oeuvre. Which makes the fact that it's an almost irresistibly likeable, defiantly sunny comedy all the more astounding.
It's also a hymn to capitalism and the advantages offered to a metropolitan teenager. Consider: Ferris's idea of a good time is bombing around in a vintage Ferrari a visit to the Chicago stock exchange followed by lunch in the city's swankiest restaurant ó posh scran for which his method of payment goes So it should, on paper at least, be an unbearably smug celebration of crass consumerism.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is, in fact, an unadulterated celebration of what it's like to be young white, middle class and well-heeled in mid 80s America. 'What's amazing about Ferris Bueller,' Jeffrey Jones told Empire back in 1998 (after he'd bemoaned the fact that he was likely to be better remembered for his role as nutcase headmaster Ed Rooriey than his Emperor Joseph II in 1984's Amadeus), 'is that we're asked to, and do, sympathise with a kid whose only complaint in life is that his sister got a car for her birthday and he got a computer.' It is, indeed, a hell of an achievement.
