HEATHERS
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
102 min., R, Comedy, 1989 Director: Michael Lehmann Cast: Christian Slater, Winona Ryder, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, Penelope Milford, Glenn Shadix, Lance Fenton, Renee Estevez
At high school Winona Ryder is part of a clique composed of three other girls all with the first name Heather (Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, and Kim Walker). Ryder meets weird unpopular Christian Slater in the school cafeteria. He is tired of the three Heathers running the lives of everybody at school so he proposes that he and Ryder kill them off in a way that looks like suicide. They start with Walker. After they kill her, she becomes more of an idol than before and Ryder starts to have second thoughts about Slater's crazy idea.
HEATHERS is a very good black comedy about high school life, for those who haven't forgotten high school or for those who are still in high school. I think to really get the meaning behind the film you must be in high school, or have already gone through high school. Younger viewers, I feel, will not get the enjoyment from the film. The use of suicide may offend some viewers, so if this is a touchy subject with you this may not be the film for you to see. On a scale of zero to five, I give HEATHERS a four. HEATHERS is rated R for explicit language, violence, and adult situations.
HEATHERS covers the hard subject of cliques, not just in high school but every where. At least in my high school, the cliques run the school, and someone from one clique usually doesn't associate with someone from another clique, which is not the way it should be.
The main problem, I feel, with HEATHERS is that the film gets ecxessively unrealistic. Christian Slater over does his role just a little bit. He seems to be trying to impersonate Jack Nicholson and he isn't the best at it. Slater would have done a better job if he put a little bit more of himself into the role. Winona Ryder's character is not the brightest person. She just goes into Slater's crazy ideas without thinking of what might happen. Ryder puts in a great performance and I feel does a better job than Slater. Shannen Doherty (of "Beverly Hills, 90210"), Lisanne Falk, and Kim Walker all do a great job as the three Heathers.
The film is rather well written, but as I mentioned earlier, the film does get rather unrealistic in some places. The part that I think was the biggest rip-off was the ending. I felt it was just slapped in with no consideration for those watching the film. This I feel really hurt the film, and I wish that somebody had tried harder to make the ending better.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
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