Contents: 
Heathers (1988) is a movie directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Daniel Waters. It follows the high school student
Veronica Sawyer whom belongs to a popular and cruel clique of girls called Heather. Veronica clearly doesn't fit in with them and
the arrival of J.D -a misanthrope, murderous and outcast high school student- in her life makes her rethink her frienship with the Heathers.
As soon as J.D and Veronica start dating, they begin killing their popular classmates and staging their deaths as suicides, but this will
have unexpected consequences.
 Heathers is undoubtedly the most influential teen and clique movie of all time. Even Mean Girls —very good, by the way— was inspired by it. It is difficult to explain what makes Heathers so good and different from the rest, and this becomes even clearer when you see movies trying to imitate its dark comedy and intelligent social criticism, failing in the process and leaving us with what feels more like a parody. I have come to the conclusion that the era in which it was written/directed is what makes the difference. If I am not mistaken, the screenwriter once mentioned in an interview that the events that occur in the movie were written in that way because they were supposed to be very ridiculous and over-the-top. And they are, totally, but not nowadays with the epidemic of violence experienced in schools around the world. I think something that Heathers does very well is show how high school is a prelude to real life, and when you feel like a loser, you think that feeling will follow you for the rest of your life and then... you have nothing to lose. Something that is also exposed in a brutal way in the film is people's cynicism when someone commits suicide. When the deaths of these popular students are passed off as suicides, people immediately invented a narrative that gave depth and contradictions to these kids who, in truth, had none; on the other hand, when a student, unpopular, unattractive, and who was bullied, tried to commit suicide, everyone's reaction was to laugh and not take her seriously. Because there was nothing 'fascinating' behind her suicide attempt, there was no mystery, and her image was not desirable enough to create a culture around it. Heathers is so transcendent and that it becomes more real every day is extremely sad. |
Here you have a compilation of my favourite stills from the movie!
Heathers doesn't have a pretty outstanding soundtrack.
Nevertheless, I linked it. I always thought that "Kids in America" by Kim Wilde (1981)
represented very well the tone of the movie.
