Yar, you be here: Heathers (THX Version) > Customer Reviews

Heathers (THX Version) Customer Reviews (13 - 15 of 43 Reviews)

Veronica Sawyer - Nietzschean superwoman
First, let me say that "Heathers" is a fabulous movie. It ended the 80s teen movie genre. The writing is witty, and the story and acting are all top notch. Others have written better on these subjects than I could, so instead I will concentrate on Veronica, the antiheroine of this movie.

"Heathers" begins with Westerberg's power clique, consisting of Heather Chandler, Heather Duke, Heather McNamera, and Veronica Sawyer. The Heathers are cruel. Veronica starts hating her friends and her life. Heather Chandler, the leader, confirms that Veronica has turned her back on her true friends for power and popularity. After a fight with Chandler, in which she vows to destroy Veronica's social status, Veronica writes in her diary that she wants Chandler dead. A few hours later, with the help of J.D., she accomplishes this. Was picking up the wrong glass truly a mistake? Consciously, perhaps. Subconsciously, I feel it was deliberate. To coverup the crime, Veronica composes a fake suicide note. In her prayer at Chandler's funeral, she confesses her guilt.

Later, two jock jerks sully Veronica's reputation. She and J.D. hatch a plan to shoot the jocks with nonlethal bullets and make them appear to be homosexuals. Once again, did she really believe the bullets were nonlethal? Regardless, when she finally shoots Kurt, she is very aware that the bullets are lethal, but kills him anyway.

[As an aside, I am an ex-DA. Veronica's guilt of murder on the first three are all slam dunks. In each case, even if she did not mean to kill them, she assaulted all three intentionally (including Ram, for she and J.D. attacked Kurt and Ram together). If you intentionally harm someone and cause his death, you are guilty of murder even if you did not mean to kill that person. On the other hand, given J.D.'s mother's suicide, sadistic father, and antisocial behavior, it is quite likely he would be found not guilty by reason of insanity.]

Her fourth crime is the attempted murder of J.D. Of course, it was done for what in her mind was to save the students of the school. But had she truly wanted to save the school, she would have contacted the authorities. She could not do that without confessing her other crimes, so she took justice into her own hands. The added benefit, of course, was eliminating the one person who knew of her other crimes.

So what do we have at the end of the movie? Four people are dead. Three are cruel, and one is crazy. None needed to die, but since they were mean people, Veronica eliminated them. Her crimes were horrible, but for a greater good in her eyes. As she said in her prayer, she just wanted a nicer school. To her credit, she accomplished this.

As the movie ends, Veronica snatches the red bow from Heather Duke and assumes her position as queen of Westerburg. At the beginning of the movie, we had Chandler as the leader with three friends in her clique. At the end, it is exactly the same! Veronica, the former best friend of Chandler, has assumed her place. Martha, the former best friend of Duke, replaces her. Betty Finn, former best friend of Veronica, takes Sawyer's place. And McNamera, who was humiliated due to her own act of contrition, retains her position in Veronica's circle. At the end, Westerburg is a nicer school, thanks to the many murders of Miss Sawyer. The ends justify the means, and Veronica Sawyer is truly beyond good and evil.

Biting teen satire
For those who do not respond well to irony and satire, then Heathers is not a film for you. Taking the contemporaneous hysteria over teenage suicide and using it to poke fun at the high school world that more closely resembles reality than John Hughes' films makes for touchy subject matter for those who can't see the irony.

From the invented group "Big Fun" who sing the popular song "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)", to the interior monologues of various teen friends as they stand around the coffin of one of their departed (but once hated) fellow students, suicide is used by the narrative for both humour and social commentary. This is not to say that the film encourages teens to consider ending their lives; instead it promotes other ways in which teens who feel victimised in high school can deal with its horrors.

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in the leading roles were actually teens when the film was shot, and lend a lot of credibility to the film where other teen films fall down with their twenty- and thirty- something casts. The scriptwriting is phenomenal for a teen movie, and this brilliance has probably not been replicated in this genre since. The DVD also includes a great commentary track noting the original ending which was too controversial for New World Pictures to allow to be produced. You can find the script for the alternate ending in the bonus features as well.

Given that New World Pictures (the only studio willing to give the "out there" script a go) went out of business just after the film's release, and the monopoly of the big studios continues, it's unlikely we'll ever see another film quite like it for teens.

F*** me gently with a chainsaw!
This was a MOVIE, and that deserves to be in all capital letters. Before there was Heathers, there was nothing even remotely close to this. There were movies about high school, to be sure, but they featured nothing but beautiful people in the midst of adolescent crushes and breaking down social taboos. There was nothing that implied that any of them were anything but vain, none of them were genuinly evil. But man, these gals were absolutely positivly EVIL.

Chocked full of great quotes (ex. "What's your damage, Heather?"), hilariously funny scenes which should otherwise be depressing around suicide / murder scenes, and misguided high school mentality, this took the high school experience to a new high and new low. Veronica, played by Wynona Ryder in her first major break through role, is one of the Heathers. She wanted to get into the most powerful clique in school, a group of arrogant, evil girls who all the boys want to screw and all the girls might hate but secretly want to be. She finds that being with them is not all it's cracked up to be. She's conned into the note trick, going out to parties she otherwise doesn't want to be at, and hanging around with people she otherwise doesn't like. It's lonely at the top, as they say. One day she meets a handsome stranger, JD, a young Christian Slater who made girls squeal before he turned into a burned out Hollywood celebrity who does little but skirt chase and get nosebleeds, and is smitten in teen lust for him. The Heathers don't approve of him, as he's not their type of material, but he wins Veronica over with his bad boy charms and soon the two are an item. When Veronica accidentally kills the most evil Heather of them all when she serves her a hot cup of liquid Drano, they decide to cover it up with a suicide note. Soon, teenage suicide takes on a whole new spin. Suicide victims are glorified, a new Heather rises to the occation, JD goes on a new rampage to rid the world of other social degenerates, and all hell breaks loose.

There is so much genius in a dark comedy like this. From the subtilies of their slang, the silent prayers of the other kids at the funerals, the attitudes of the teachers, to the other, lesser characters in school, eveyone had something terrible to say about how rotten it is to be a teenager. And somehow Veronica had heart about her. She is the snotty popular girl who was accepted in the clique, but she still longs for her more geniune friends (Betty). What keeps her from going with the really good people and back to the bad ones (the Heathers and JD) is that she's weak. Like one of the other Heathers, it's easier just to be a follower than to stand up to the stronger ones or shun them completely.

Those teachers with all their academic, elitist yet flake mentalities are a scream. The cruel and aweful treatment of Martha DumpTruck (way before political correctness told us not to make fun of people with sizest disabilities) make you cry as much as they make you laugh. I even knew a gal in high school who had the same relationship with her parents that Veronica did with hers which made it all the more funny ("Want some pate?"), and she was one of the clique. And she was a dingbat. If she only knew how funny it really was looking back.

This also paved the way for many movies to come. Take away the 80s fashions and it transends the ages. Extreme violence movies, modern day toils about high school antics of the popular girls making others' lives bad (ex. Mean Girls), and even the somewhat raunchier sitcoms (ex. Sex In The City) all had roots here in Heathers. Unfortunately, there are some very dark roots in Heathers, as this was made long before kids were bringing guns to school, detonating bombs, and destroying everyone around them. Enjoy it for what it is, a fest of evil, self serving meanness. And it's deep too.

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Next Page