Heathers **** (1988, Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker) – Classic Movie Review 3449

Director Michael Lehmann’s 1988 satirical crime comedy Heathers is now an Eighties cult classic and gives an iconic role to Winona Ryder, who stars as the intelligent teenaged Veronica Sawyer, a member of a snobby elite high school clique group called The Heathers, inventively so named because the other girls in it are all called Heather. Dim and bitchy, and immensely self-obsessed, they are the three most popular girls at school. Veronica is a cynical brunette, an outsider.

The Heathers are picking on people, especially the school fat girl, and destroying Veronica’s regular good-girl reputation, and soon she comes to the realisation that school would be better if her three bossy and bullying best friends were not in her life. Luckily, Veronica has caught the eye of a cute boy hiding alone in the corner of the cafeteria. Enter the school’s dark sociopath JD (Christian Slater), another attractive outsider, the seemingly perfect soul mate for Veronica.

They start a passionate romance, and soon they team up to exact some mild revenge on the three Heathers. Unfortunately, though Veronica gets most things right, she misjudges this particular situation, no doubt blinded by passion. She thinks JD is a cute poseur, but it turns out that he is actually a lethal lunatic.

He thinks the solution is murder, so they join in a plot to kill the cool kids. Bit by bit, tragedy hits the high school, and the pupil population starts to decrease rather dramatically. Strangely, no one seems to care that much. And the young Bonnie and Clyde gleefully carry on their killing spree in this killer comedy.

Needless to say, but I will, the girls’ parents and the school authorities are portrayed as complete idiots and morons. Cue some very amusing lines and performances. Heathers has a uniquely dark view of the world. It is an American nightmare.

As you can see, this is not your usual teen comedy but an outrageous teen black comedy drama. Funny, surreal and bleak, it is sustained until near the end by its clever bad taste jokes and the sharp star performances. Daniel Waters’s screenplay is witty and funny, but uneven, and alas finally goes wildly off the rails in an over-blown climax, though it does keep true to its bleakly dark tone to the bitter end.

However, the movie is a confident and impressive feature début for director Lehmann, who turns in a sharply stylised, stylish movie. The young Ryder and Slater are also confident and impressive, giving very strong, charismatic performances. Shannen Doherty (Heather Duke), Lisanne Falk (Heather McNamara) and Kim Walker (Heather Chandler) play The Heathers, and they are all good too.

Also in the cast are Penelope Wilford, Glenn Shadix, Lance Fenton, Patrick Labyorteaux, Jeremy Applegate, Jon Shear, Carrie Lynn, Phill Lewis, Renée Estevez and John Zarchen.

Thirty years on with the 30th anniversary 4K restoration of Heathers, time has added allure to the movie. Its Eighties look fits perfectly into its retro style, and it is such fun to see the incredibly young-looking Ryder and Slater the way they were.

Director and producer Lehmann is also known for Hudson Hawk (1991), Airheads (1994), The Truth about Cats and Dogs (1995), My Giant (1998) and 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002). In 2016, his most recent features are from 2007 – Flakes and Because I said So. But he is incredibly busy on TV.

Brad Pitt auditioned for JD, but was considered too nice for the part. But Pitt later played another character named JD in Thelma & Louise (1991). The 17-year-old Heather Graham’s parents decided against her playing cheerleader Heather McNamara because of the dark subject matter.

The producers could not get clearance from copyright stickler JD Salinger to use his book The Catcher in the Rye and it was changed to public domain work Moby Dick.

Ryder claims that this is her favourite movie and that she gets asked about the possibility of Heathers 2 more than anything else. ‘I was not the first choice for Veronica in Heathers,’ she reveals. ‘I auditioned and they were like, “Oh, thanks”. They were trying to get Jennifer Connelly. And I went to the Beverly Center to Macy’s and had them do a makeover on me. I went back because I kind of knew that they thought I wasn’t pretty enough.’ In the event, Connelly turned it down, so Ryder was in.

Arrow Films releases a special 30th anniversary 4K restoration of Heathers in UK cinemas from 8 August 2018, on Digital & On Demand on 20 August, and on DVD and Blu-Ray on 10 September 2018.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3449

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater star in Heathers (1988).