Review: Heathers

Veronica (Winona Ryder) is one of the most popular girls at her high school and a part of a bitchy clique with three other girls all named Heather (Kim Walker, a pre-“90210” Shannen Doherty, and Lisanne Falk). Veronica, who used to hang out with a much less ‘popular’ crowd, is tiring of all this ‘mean girl’ stuff. It’s just not who she is. Enter J.D. (Christian Slater), a troubled newcomer who catches Veronica’s attention, and shows disdain for her refusal to call out her friends’ snooty, fake bullshit. They quickly fall for one another. He eventually gets Veronica onto his way of thinking, as they plan a prank on one of the Heathers (the late Kim Walker). The prank goes awry, however, and Walker ends up dead. They cover the death up to look like a suicide, but before long things have spiralled way out of control as more students meet their deaths, and Veronica starts to realise there’s something very, very wrong about this ‘bad boy’. Jennifer Rhodes plays Veronica’s clueless mother, and the late Glenn Shadix plays a preacher.

 

It’s interesting that this dark comedy from director Michael Lehmann (who is a fairly prolific TV director these days) and screenwriter Daniel Waters (“Batman Returns”, the highly underrated action/comedy “Demolition Man”) comes from 1989, because thematically this is actually more reminiscent of 90s teen society. So much so, that perhaps if it did get made a few years later, it’d play a lot more uncomfortably than it did at the time. Seeing it again now in 2016, yeah there’s a bit of discomfort, especially when you realise that two of the cast have subsequently died in manners eerily similar to lines of dialogue their characters have in the film. It doesn’t even give the film a “Crow”-like melancholic vibe that enhances the film, it’s just creepy and morbid to think about (Not to mention the all-round Columbine vibe the film probably gives off for some people). However, if you can try not to take things too seriously, what you have is what it might look like if Tim Burton (think “Beetlejuice” minus the ghoulish monster stuff) decided to direct a teen movie, with a touch of David Lynch (“Blue Velvet”) to boot. If that sounds like your thing, you’ve probably already seen and worshipped the film. I like it too. It’s not great, but it definitely works, and at the time it as wildly original. It might not be to all tastes given some of the subject matter, but I don’t think it has really become outdated, either, just prescient.

 

It’s a crying shame that the once promising Lehmann followed this debut with crap like “Hudson Hawk”, “My Giant”, and the truly dreadful “40 Days and 40 Nights”, because he really burst on the scene with a pretty daring effort here (though “Airheads” at least had a cool soundtrack). This is a deeply, deeply cynical film of the late 80s seemingly with somewhat of a snarky, grungy 90s mentality (“The River’s Edge” from 1986 was another dark film about teens with murder involved, but that was a strong drama about disaffected youth, not a snarky, cynical comedy about conformity). Some of it is very, very funny, in particular a crude prayer over the coffin of one of the Heathers is hilarious. Winona Ryder is immediately perfect in this as Veronica. I hope she has a true comeback one of these days. For all of her faults, she’s a good and iconic actress of the 80s and 90s and she’s spot-on here. I’ve heard Jennifer Connelly turned the role down, and whilst I think Connelly is a better actress, I just don’t think she has the cynicism and flair for snarky comedy that Ryder brings. It’s easily one of Ryder’s best-ever roles. Christian Slater was no newcomer here, but this film absolutely made him. His character’s name echoes James Dean, but even Slater himself admits his performance is heavily influenced by Jack Nicholson. It’s a perfect choice of inspiration, actually, as it helps give the character a malevolent edge to go with the school rebel coolness. I think his big screen career is probably over now (TV seems to have revived his career somewhat, though), but here his talent and kinda dangerous charisma are blatantly obvious. Winona might’ve been all about Johnny Depp for the next couple of years, but she and Slater have undeniable chemistry in this. In a smaller role, Shannen Doherty is well-cast as the most insecure of the three Heathers. The fact that she’s still not very good makes her casting essential- it could’ve been a whole lot worse if she was given a different role.

 

I’m not the biggest fan of black comedies, but this is one of the better ones of its type. It has a dark fantasy vibe to it, and the moment Slater pulls a gun on a couple of jocks, you see that this is all dark comedy and fantasy. The dark fantasy/comedy vibe is also the thing that separates it from all of its imitators, as they tend to just steal the basic plot/characters and forget about the rest, therefore becoming generic. I found it funny how quickly Ryder’s mind turns to murder here, despite somewhat feeling guilty about it afterwards. I found it especially amusing that despite looking nothing alike, the three Heathers still somehow feel largely interchangeable, presumably intentional. They’re all Heathers, so who the hell cares which one you’re specifically addressing? They’re almost Borg-like, especially early on. There’s also an interesting and valid message at play here about the problems with conformity/cliques (still absolutely relevant today), but also the dangers of falling for the ‘cool’, edgy guy. Slater’s Jason Dean isn’t just a cool rebel, he’s a freaking psychopath.

 

Although Waters (whose brother Mark later directed the soft, mediocre “Heathers”-wannabe “Mean Girls”) has mostly written a very clever and interesting script here, there is the drawback of some unnecessary and unconvincing swearing. I love swearing as anyone who has read my reviews will likely know, but something is off here. ‘Fuck me gently with a chainsaw!’ is delivered by one of the weaker actresses in the cast, but it’s mostly just an awful, inorganic line. I’m all for some creative profanity, but the swearing in this just sounds like grade-schoolers trying to sound cool by saying naughty words that they don’t quite understand enough to use properly and in an organic-sounding manner. The fact that these are 20-something year-olds pretending to be high-schoolers sounding like grade-schoolers is just weird. Other than that, I really have no complaints here.

 

A warped, dark comedy with two pitch-perfect lead performances and some clever, if macabre moments throughout. I’m not sure I’d call it a classic or even ‘cult classic’, but I can see why others might (it’s certainly more indicative of my high school experience than some of the more sanitised teen movies). It’s gotta be someone’s favourite movie of all-time…perhaps not someone you’d want to have over for dinner, mind you. Just sayin’…

 

Rating: B-