I enjoyed watching Heathers when it came on again the other night on TV. I hadn't seen it in quite a number of years, and my memory of it wasn't too impressionable either way. But seeing it now, years after finishing high school myself, it is definitely one of those funny films that is most effective playing against the conventions of the high school movie of the period. This isn't John Hughes here, but something that is attempting to get at rougher terrain - chiefly the dicey subject of teenage suicide - and at the jaded point of view of the modern adolescent. Winona Ryder has one of her better performances as Veronica, looking on at the 'Heathers', a clique of girls, with total contempt.
What about her love life? There's the dangerous and strange kid JD (Christian Slater, at his youngest and, dare I say it, hippest), who has some crazy ideas in his head- one of which may result in lots of destruction of public property. It's when the skewering goes right against the hypocrisies of teenage vanity, the value of life and living, and what it is to be mentally stable that Heathers is sharpest; one funeral scene, I might add, is a classic satirical piece. But the only flaws end up coming out of an instability in getting a grip between the dark comedy and the real dramatic elements, which start to lean towards melodrama towards the last section where JD goes off the map (the very end, especially, is a major letdown). But for at least 3/4 of the way, Heathers makes its mark as one of the coolest films of 1989.
What about her love life? There's the dangerous and strange kid JD (Christian Slater, at his youngest and, dare I say it, hippest), who has some crazy ideas in his head- one of which may result in lots of destruction of public property. It's when the skewering goes right against the hypocrisies of teenage vanity, the value of life and living, and what it is to be mentally stable that Heathers is sharpest; one funeral scene, I might add, is a classic satirical piece. But the only flaws end up coming out of an instability in getting a grip between the dark comedy and the real dramatic elements, which start to lean towards melodrama towards the last section where JD goes off the map (the very end, especially, is a major letdown). But for at least 3/4 of the way, Heathers makes its mark as one of the coolest films of 1989.