Heathers

RELEASED IN 1989 and directed by Michael Lehmann, Heathers stars Winona Ryder as Veronica, a high school student in Ohio who has sold herself out to join the popular clique of three girls, all coincidently named Heather (Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk & Shannen Doherty). The more she spends time with them, however, the more she discovers she cant stand them. Enter mysterious new kid, JD (Christian Slater), who has a macabre solution to Veronicas conundrum.

This is an oddball teen movie that tries to be edgy and amusing with its black humor and overt cussing. Future movies were influenced by it, like Jawbreaker (1999) and maybe even Mean Girls (2004). The commentary on peer pressure, teen suicide and the maiming destructiveness of cliques is...

This movie is a high school satire done absolutely amazingly. It's everything current high school dramas wish they were. It's dark, funny, but does not lose any of its meaning to stupid jokes. It perfectly shows the hell that is high school (and society as a whole). Just like in high school, there are Marthas and Heathers everywhere in life.

J.D. is a great villain, because even though from his very introduction, we know he's a messed up person who does bad things, yet you start to empathize with him just like Veronica. It shows that, as a society, we go to great lengths to defend white men and their actions.

Heathers is furthermore also obviously a critique on the social hierarchies that exist in the world. It shows this on a small...

"Heathers" is almost like a jet black version of "Rebel Without A Cause" (1955) or some such as it steadfastly plumbs the complicated labyrinthine depths of teenage angst and comes up with a radical and downright homicidal anti-social solution. It is overflowing with the largely inconsequential concerns of the hierarchy which exists in all schools to a greater or lesser degree and it provides some harsh examples of this at its most cruel and unforgiving. Who would want to be a teenager again? Anyway, no matter how dark this film becomes and no matter how close Veronica is to ridding her life of the Heathers of the title, she still demurs at the last moment and stops short (she even prevents the eager J.D. from blowing the school up with ex...