It’s a beautiful spring day in suburban Chicago, and 50-year-old Ferris Bueller decides he just can’t deal with going into work.
“I’m not well,” he tells his admin over the phone. “I threw my back out sneezing.” She believes it because she’s 25-years-old and knows elderly men like him are easily injured. Ferris’ uptight teenage daughter Jeannie then walks into the room and rolls her eyes when she sees him still in bed. “Can’t adult today? Bite the big 1” she texts from two feet away. He gives her an innocent smile. She texts him a middle finger emoji.
Once home alone, Ferris tweets, “They bought it!” to his 1,200 @FerrisWheel followers. “This is my 9th sick day this quarter. If I go for 10, I’ll have to barf up a lung.” Then he remembers that two of his friends from high school recently died of lung disease caused by 35 years of smoking, and he posts an inspirational meme on Instagram that says: “Life Moves Pretty Fast. If You Don’t Stop to Look Around Once in Awhile, You’ll Miss It.” His neighbor immediately comments, “Up yours snowflake #MAGA.”
Ferris calls his best friend Cameron who’s clinically depressed despite retiring at age 30 because he bought Apple stock in 1984. “Want to hang out today?” Ferris asks. “I’m playing hooky from work.”
Cameron replies, “When Cameron was in Egypt’s land, let my Cameron gooooo… wait, was that culturally insensitive? I never know anymore. But bro, you’ve had three written warnings from human resources. Maybe you should spend today on LinkedIn.”
Meanwhile, there’s confusion on the weekly staff call when Ferris doesn’t join in. “Is Marketing on the line?” asks the team leader. “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?”
“I heard he passed out at 31 Flavors last night,” someone says, which is surprising because everyone knows Ferris is on the Keto diet due to his high blood pressure. They start a GoFundMe page.
Word gets to Mr. Rooney, the head of HR, that Ferris called in sick again. His admin shrugs and says, “Everyone here loves him, Ed. Sportos, Motorheads, Geeks, Sluts, Bloods, Wastoids, Dweebies, Dickheads. They all think he’s a righteous dude.”
Mr. Rooney stares at her in horror because she pretty much just violated the entire company handbook, and vows to bust Ferris.
Cameron and Ferris drive to the office in one of ten vintage Ferraris that Cameron bought to fill his existential void, and break Ferris’s ex-wife Sloane out by phoning in a bogus story about her dead grandmother. Sloane gets in the car and says, “My grandma died 30 years ago and I’m a Sr. VP who can leave whenever I like, you morons. Honestly, it’s shit like this that made me divorce your ass ten years ago, Ferris. And take off that beret. You look like an idiot.” She still goes to Chicago with them because they’re not as bad as the losers she’s seen on Bumble recently.
After the threesome drop the Ferrari off at a parking garage, the attendant takes it out for a joyride not knowing it’s being tracked by GPS. He will later be fired and Cameron will sue the garage owner into devastating ruin. Ohhhh, yeahhhhh, Chick-chikahhhhhh.
Sloane wants to visit Sears Tower, but they pass when they realize it’s now called Willis Tower and it costs $24.99 each to ride the elevator. “What a racket,” Ferris says. “Back in my day, it was only $5.” Sloane reminds him that ‘back in his day’ was 32 years ago, and then they all quietly contemplate their impending death.
Next, they head to a fancy restaurant, but can’t get a table, so Ferris tells the maître’d that he’s the "Sausage King of Chicago.” The maître’d says, “Nice try, sicko, but Abe Froman died from a massive heart attack twenty years ago.” They eat a sad meal at a vegan food truck in the alley.
Back in the suburbs, Rooney arrives at Ferris’s house and is kicked in the face by Jeannie, who was sent home after being caught using a Juul in the school bathroom. She calls the police and says she has a “To Catch a Predator sitch” happening, but not to worry because she’s filming it all on her iPhone. The cops still drag her to the police station where a cute junkie flirts with her. “Gross, back off, dude,” she tells him. "I’d never date a mediocre white druggie like you. I’m way too busy fighting the patriarchy.”
After bitching about the streets being closed due to yet another ethnic pride parade, Ferris climbs onto a float and lip-synchs "Twist and Shout” because it’s on his bucket list. Sloane and Cameron enjoy his performance until they remember that two of the four Beatles are dead, and so are most of their musical heroes, and now every song on the radio is an auto-tune about butts. Then Ferris leaves the float to buy some extra-strength Motrin because twisting was not so good for his lower back.
On their way home, Ferris sees he has thirty missed messages from work, so he calls an Uber to speed him to the office. He makes it to his desk right before Rooney comes in and tells him, “While you were out, the partners and I took a hard look at your job performance.”
Ferris sighs. “Well, I guess that means I’m fired. I probably deserve it due to years of not taking my job seriously, not showing up, and finding loopholes and cheats to get ahead over way more deserving people.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rooney answers. “You’re a white man in America. We’re giving you a promotion!”
“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” Ferris later tells his friends on Facebook Live. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you’ll miss it.” Then he hacks into the company’s financial files and transfers two million dollars into his offshore account.