HEATHERS
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
[Seen at the Seattle International Film Festival]
HEATHERS (USA, 1989)
Director: Michael Lehmann Screenwriter: Daniel Waters Cast: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walder, Penelope Milford
While not running on all eight cylinders, HEATHERS crosses the finish line with 6.8 of them going full blast, and is one of the funniest films of the year -- which should be a good enough recommendation for most folks, methinks. It has generally been labeled a "black comedy" (though not nearly as dark as I had been led to believe from local reviewers, who were apparently afraid that high school murders treated comically were more likely to offend than Freddy's latest outing. Go figure...), and seems to be mentioned in the same breath with RIVER'S EDGE, probably because both deal with high school kids and murder. That's about where the similarities end, though; HEATHERS is also a witty, acid send-up of high school conventions in the upper-middle-classes, with more on-target barbs than I can remember seeing in every Brat Pack film John Hughes has done in the last eight years. It's satire -- mean-spirited, nasty, cunning satire, which is of course the best and most honest kind.
Winona Ryder plays a high school student who, when the film opens, is a member of Westerburg High School's most exclusive clique of girls. She's getting uncomfortable, though, with the mental and social cruelty that her peers are dishing out every day, and when a handsome, sardonic outsider (Christian Slater) starts up with her, she thinks this might be her way out of the clique. It is, but *not* in the way she thinks...
The film's strong points rest between the outrageousness of the plot (murders assumed to be suicides in the school population, and the effects on the students, parents and the community) and the wonderful dialogue and mannerisms of the characters. Yeah, I've been out of high school for over a decade (thankGodthankGodthankGod), but the cadence and attitudes are right on the money. ("Fuck me gently with a chain saw -- do I look like Mother Theresa?") It's just one good line after another... The school's reaction to the "mass suicides" is hysterical; this makes FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH look like THE WONDER YEARS. Lehmann and Waters treat Westerburg High like an anthropology case study, detailing dominance, relationships, sex and group migration. The report based on the study, however, has more of O'Donoghue (Michael) than Darwin in it.
There are some problems, though; most of them center around the half hour before the conclusion, where the film almost becomes a pedestrian thriller. The humor and satire are temporarily muted, and we have the usual stalking/stalked chase scene, albeit taking place underneath a school assembly. It's as if the creators weren't sure what to do before the climax (where they return to the satiric tone of the rest of the film, thankfully), and filled it in with a standard suspense sequence with some humorous touches.
The whole cast is good, adding to the characterizations of an excellent script with expansive performances. Christian Slater seems to have decided to imitate Jack Nicholson at 18 (he's pretty good, at that), and it gets distracting at times; but it limits his performance without hurting it. (Daniel Waters, the writer, was at the performance, and mentioned that the psuedo-Nicholson tone was Slater's idea; Water's disliked it, but it appealed to Lehmann, so it stayed.) Ryder is the standout, in a performance that is three-dimensional, yet slips right in with the film's satiric tone. Other satiric comedies at the festival either tried mixing satire with drama and failed (YEN FAMILY, CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL) or stuck to just satire (SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS); HEATHERS attempted and, for the most part, succeeded with both, making it one of the strongest comic films of the year.
Recommended highly.
[Side note: I wished I'd taped Water's comments, as he is about as amusing as you would expect from the writer of HEATHERS. His description of almost selling the project to Disney was worth the price of admission.]
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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