Review #1490: Heathers.Cast:
Winona Ryder (Veronica Sawyer), Christian Slater (Jason "J.D." Dean), Shannen Doherty (Heather Duke), Lisanne Falk (Heather McNamara), Kim Walker (Heather Chandler), Penelope Milford (Pauline Fleming), Glenn Shadix (Father Ripper), Lance Fenton (Kurt Kelly), Patrick Labyorteaux (Ram Sweeney), Jeremy Applegate (Peter Dawson), Em Lodge (M.C. May), and Renée Estevez (Betty Finn) Directed by Michael Lehmann (#307 - Hudson Hawk)
Review:
"The teen films of the time, the John Hughes film, were fun. But there’s a whole other wing of the high school they weren’t going into — the dark, Stephen King wing that nobody wanted to look at. And I think Heathers was refreshing."
If you compile enough effort and get a bunch of people together, perhaps you too can make a cult classic. Too bad this is one I don't really like that much. Daniel Waters was a video store manager at the time he decided to write this screenplay, while Lehmann had studied at both Columbia University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts that got attention from his student film The Beaver Gets a Boner. Waters thought that Hollywood romanticized suicide and that people had some sort of "ultimate fantasy" of attending their funeral, and he wrote a lengthy screenplay in response to that, with a lead character described as a "female Travis Bickle". Similarities have been noted between this film and Massacre at Central High (1976), which was about a series of revenge killings at a high school that had the oppressed kids turn into bullies, which also had a looming threat of exploding the whole school for a climax; Waters stated that while he did not see the film, he had read a review of it in a book while writing the script, which might have stuck in his subconscious somewhere (that statement just makes me want to see the other film). Believe it or not, Waters actually originally wanted this to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, since he admired him and also thought of him as the only person that could do a three-hour film (this is where I try to hold myself from abject laughter at the idea of this being remotely connected to Kubrick). With a budget of over $3 million, the film made just one-third of that upon release (being distributed by a slowly dying New World Pictures might not have helped).
Nothing frustrates me more than an average film, particularly one that found a cult audience for itself like this did. I can first start with the positives, since we do have a sometimes-funny film to hang an alright cast with. Ryder is fairly enjoyable to watch here, soulful as a would-be Bonnie Parker kind of role that can sometimes be funny (it certainly was a decent choice for her to pick, since she has stated her appreciation for the role). Slater, in a breakthrough role (after a handful of roles on TV and film), is enjoyably misanthropic, steadily growing darker and darker with each passing scene that certainly grabs your attention in playing mind games with chemistry. Doherty (known for TV work such as Little House on the Prairie and Our House) is fine, with a few decent moments to sneer at. Falk and Walker do okay as the other Heathers, but it is Shadix that probably delivers a few moments of deadpan fun that works the best. There are a few good snappy lines that do help give the film some footing, even when it lingers with insults and dubious moments that seemed dated now; Slater pulling a gun on someone is shown, although the part showing him firing blanks is not - try doing this now.
My fundamental sticking point lies within its execution. Suffice to say this is a movie that baffles me with its lack of convincing vision, particularly with its closing half. We are talking about a film where two kids team up together to frame suicides out of murders, correct? I don't know, I feel both of our leads deserve to be punished, not just one, since you can't just absolve one of their bad decisions (i.e. falsifying notes and actually shooting someone) while trying to stick some sort of meaningful ending, because you can't just turn a new leaf and walk away from it all (she had plenty of chances to go back to her old friends, but she instead kept going back to the others, so screw her). The original screenplay might have worked it out better with its ending, albeit on a much darker scale, since not only did both perish in that ending but the whole school did as well, with a prom sequence set afterwards with them all in "Heaven" (it was not shot, for reasons that were probably politely yelled by studio executives). In my mind, if you want to be dark, you go all the way or get out of the way. When it all comes down to it, I think this supposedly dark screenplay is full of shit. If it captures anything of the high school experience, it might capture the inane sensibilities of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting better results (i.e. staying with the same circle of people that aren't good for you or dumping others), and it also isn't as clever as it thinks it is. Do people really think this is the subversive high school experience? A confused, cynical mess? Maybe the well was poisoned from watching all those other high school movies from past and future, whether that meant films from John Hughes or something like Mean Girls. Those films, however, knew where they were going with their execution. Those films, however, knew where they were going with their humor. Those films...you get the idea. I don't particularly feel that the film works well enough as a satire to really justify itself for 103 minutes, even with Ryder and Slater there to help. Sticking a landing is important, particularly when you are trying to be funny and different in some way from other films of the era. To me, I just don't find it good enough to make it a worthy winner of darkness, merely just seeing it as a mediocre high school film.
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