Heathers

"Heathers" is a dark, hip comedy that will emerge as one of the best remembered films of its' decade. Alternately hilarious and disturbing, the film details the exploits of a young couple knee deep in high school politics and murder. Slater's Nicholson persona originated here and only adds to the offbeat charm. Smart and filled with more heart than anyone ever gave it credit for. It's like a CBS Afterschool special as directed by Wes Craven.

Ah, the 80s! It was quite a different time. Loud fashion, ecstatic energy. I love most of the 80's teen films, more than the 90's and 2000's films. There was a certain closeness between the characters and they were portrayed as real humans rather than just horny caricatures. Michael Lehmann's 'Heathers' is one of the best dark comedy teen satires. Lehmann briefly tackles many themes that are of concern to teenagers such as bulimia, popularity, bullying to self-esteem and suicide. This was the time when Christian Slater was a promising actor, when Winona Ryder wasn't arrested for shoplifting and when Shannen Doherty wasn't known yet for her unprofessionalism. the actors themselves were teenagers at the time and their performances come across as very natural. Slater perhaps gives his best performance while the adorable Ryder has gone from strength to strength until she almost vanishes into oblivion. Doherty is very cute and who knows what she could have achieved had she been more professional and not gone into soaps. I wonder whether the very young cast understood what kind of film they were doing or did they think of it as acting in a teen-flick? Waters is writing is amazing and even though a lot of the film is exaggerated, it brilliantly mirrors teen-life in the 80's (which isn't that different today either) and is brutally honest but at the same time funny. The dialogues and one liners are extremely comical and at the same time wonderfully simple. There's also a lot of clever symbolism. For example, Slater's Jason Dean says: People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, "Now there's a school that self-destructed, not because society didn't care, but because the school was society." This one line does mark a crucial truth about teenagers because for most teenagers, high-school IS society. Forget these 'American Pies', 'Mean Girls', 'One Tree Hills' etc. None of these wannabe teen flicks will ever be able to match up to the excellence of 'Heathers'. This is one of (if not THE) the best teen films.

In Ohio, Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is a teenager trying to participate in the clique at the Westerburg High School of her schoolmates Heathers: Duke (Shannon Doherty), McNamara (Lisanne Falk) and Chandler (Kim Walker). She supports their nasty and shallow behavior just aiming to be a popular student. One day, the newcomer in town Jason Dean (Christian Slater) starts dating Veronica and he questions her relationship with the Heathers. When they accidentally kill one of the Heathers, they forge a suicide note and even dead, she becomes more popular among the students. Other students become also tempted to commit suicide while Veronica learns that Jason Dean is a psychopath.

Most American high school students are usually presented to the world in comedies as imbecile. "Heathers" makes no exception and goes further and further in the critic, showing them very shallow, trying to be popular at any price and without questioning life. The behavior of their fathers and mothers is also stupid. This original dark comedy has a great potential of a cult movie. Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in the beginning of career shine in the cast performing cynical roles. "Heathers" is one of the best American teen movie and worthwhile watching. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Atração Mortal" ("Mortal Attraction")

Daniel Waters wrote one of the best satires ever in "Heathers", a dark comedy that ranks right up there with "Dr. Strangelove" and "Network". Certainly it's the best teen comedy ever made. Why? Because in spite of its highly stylized depiction of teenagers, it caught the truest essence of what high school is actually like in America. Not only that, it trashed the entire genre and-- in a feat of sheer genius-- even the *reaction* to the genre by outside observers (namely parents). Terry Southern could have done no better.

"Westerburg high school self-destructed not *because* of society but because Westerburg High School *was* society" was restated, to near-universal praise, by Michael Moore in "Bowling For Columbine", but Waters said it before him, said it better, and frankly he's got a lot more credibility ("Hudson Hawk" notwithstanding). The cast is brilliant, even if, strangely, some of them don't seem to get what the whole movie was about. You half expect that most of the cast and crew, like the kids who sign a petition to bring Big Fun to the school for a gig, made a movie they didn't know they were making. But the key figures nailed it-- Ryder and Slater were never better.

"Heathers" is one of the best films of the Eighties-- put the lid on the Eighties, as it were. It has suffered criminal neglect, probably because it may have required an "indie auteur" to really knock the cinematic elements out of the park. The direction is competent but unspectacular. Still, the star is the writing, and Waters deserved an Oscar for this script. Unsentimental, vicious, and above all hilariously funny, he drove a stake through the heart of those oh-so-precious John Hughes films and, at the same time, set the stage for Kevin Williamson and all the rest. He did it with a perfect ear for dialogue combined with a Swiftian vision of social structures, and did it all as an argument *against* ironic detachment, for which this film and its messages needs to be revisited now more than ever. Simply incredible.

Unlike many of the teen movies that have enjoyed enduring appeal, "Heathers" survives not due to nostalgia, but because of its intelligence and searing, midnight-black wit.

Winona Ryder is Veronica, the disillusioned popular girl who falls in with a dangerous loner - Christian Slater as the malefic J.D. The two attempt to right their high school's social wrongs and end up on a killing spree.

Released on the cusp of the 1980s, the film feels strikingly prescient and more disturbing than ever today.