“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’’ These musings of an energetic 17-year-old have new relevance this month, as we celebrate — anyone? anyone? — the 25th anniversary of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’’ The 1986 John Hughes comedy has become a classic. Wolf Blitzer, Dan Quayle, Simon Cowell, and Justin Timberlake all call it their favorite movie, suggesting Bueller’s oddly diverse and timeless appeal.

No real day is long enough to capture all the madness in Ferris Bueller’s flight from school — taking best friend Cameron’s dad’s 1961 Ferrari (vanity plate NRVOUS) into Chicago, singing in a parade, and watching a day game at Wrigley Field (they were all day games then, as Wrigley didn’t get lights until 1988). Back then, a teen could run free with nobody noticing. Bueller’s parade escapades weren’t on YouTube. His father couldn’t hunt him down by texting.

Bueller’s quips ring wiser than ever for a Generation X that has settled into life, work, and family: “I weep for the future’’; “a person should not believe in an -ism’’; “you wear too much eye makeup’’; “you realize if we played by the rules right now, we’d be in gym.’’ But no scene is more poignant than when Bueller, Cameron, and girlfriend Sloane share a long moment of quiet staring, in an empty art museum, uninterrupted by fears of the future. It is self-indulgent. And it is, after 25 years, enviable.

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