Rating: Good Flick!
Heathers is a 1988 film directed by Michael Lehmann, who also directed various other movies like Airhead and The Truth About Cats & Dogs, but never achieving the following that he did for this movie. The film stars Christian Slater (I recently did a review of Hollow Man 2 which features him prominently.) and Winona Ryder.(Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and several others) The film takes place in an Ohio high school composed by various stereotypes, as well as cliques. One of these cliques is composed of four girls, three of them named Heather, and the fourth being Veronica, played by Winona Ryder. The movie basically takes every idea that was ever conceived about high-school and deliberately romanticizes, glamorizes, and throws it overboard in a way that at times results in absolute hilarity. If for no other reason than the audacity and ridiculousness of it all, there are a lot of moments throughout the movie where all I could do was smile with a ****-eating grin.
The Heathers are snobby bitches carrying a self-righteousness that feels oddly familiar to a lot that went to high-school albeit being a parody of the idea than anything else, and then, there's Veronica, who doesn't seem to agree with a lot of what the Heather trio is doing. She eventually before meets a boy named J.D. acted by Christian Slater that expresses ways to extract revenge on them. It is from there that the dark-humored mischief escalates this tale to complete madness. The movie is filled with apathy toward suicide, murder, and cruelty, and yet, the beauty of it all is that it feels so lighthearted and merry on the surface. There is no surprise at all whatsoever that this movie caught viewers off-guard and was capable of building a cult following.
"Deciding whether or not to kill yourself is one of the most important decisions a teen can make."
The film shamelessly glosses over the severity of their subject matter in such a way that isn't usually seen, and the squeaky clean shell only makes it all the more easy to appreciate. The premise of the story isn't exactly the most mind-blowing in all of the land, in-fact, a lot of it is even downright nonsensical, but the film itself doesn't care and honestly finds a way to make it work. A lot of that has to do with the performance of Christian Slater which feels downright brilliant at some points. I can never tell whether or not he is emotionally driven or has been emotionally driven mad, or both! The performance feels enigmatic and it's just such an intriguing experience when he takes the screen. Winona Ryder isn't a slouch either, although she obviously was given the less interesting role. Although, I suppose the voice of reason is necessary ... sigh.
The film isn't freed from cornball dialogue delivery, "Heather, my love, there's a new sheriff in town," but makes effort at keeping it to a minimum. The movie doesn't exactly give an in-depth look at teenage suicides, but can actually be merited for the morbid perspective it offers on peer pressure and how ridiculous high-school looks in retrospect. In an effort to keep it simple, I won't go as far as calling Heathers an amazing movie, I mean, there's a lot of senselessness to the storytelling at times, as well as inconsistency in the message, but I will say that I found the humor to be exquisite. I found Christian Slater's performance to be downright mesmerizing at times, and I was amused from beginning to end.
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