Movie Review: Heathers (1989)

 Greetings and salutations, blog readers! I thiiiink you guys already know this, but my birthday's in October, and usually when it's someone's birthday that person gets to pick a movie to watch, and I picked Heathers. Because what's more fun than watching a movie about a bunch of high schoolers murdering each other, right? Kiddiiiiiiiing. I did have a lot of thoughts about this movie, so let's get into it. 

Heathers was directed by Michael Lehmann, written by Daniel Waters, and stars Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk, and Penelope Milford. 

Summary: When Veronica Sawyer first meets Jason Dean, he seems like a cool guy and a welcome break from the snobby clique (the Heathers) she hangs out with, and she finally seems to have something good going for her. That is until she accidentally kills the leader of the Heathers, Heather Chandler. J.D. helps her make it look like suicide, but as time goes on, Veronica starts to suspect that he might not be as cool as she thought, and Heather Chandler's death might not have been so accidental.

My Thoughts: So, I really, really, really like the musical, and I wanted to see the movie to see if I liked it. I did end up liking it a lot. It's not going to appeal to everyone, but I thought it was a good movie, and I'd definitely see it again. 

What I Liked

-The characters

Big surprise to absolutely no one. I'm an extremely character-driven person, so if the characters don't interest me, the story doesn't interest me. Everyone in this movie [except for Betty, Martha, Heather M. and mayyyybe Veronica] is a horrible person but they're all such well-written characters. Some of them you really hate, and others are just kind of annoying. Anyway, most of them were at least semi-interesting, which is good.

-Quotes

This is probably one of the most quotable movies I have ever seen [in addition to Mean Girls, Clue, and the Jumanji movies]. I mean, I can definitely see myself quoting this a lot, and the dialogue is on point. 

-It's really funny

Heathers is a dark comedy, which means that even though things are pretty far from sunshine and rainbows, it's funny. I probably shouldn't find some of these things so funny, but I did. Like I said above, the dialogue is great and so many of the quotes are really funny. At first I was wondering why this was listed as a comedy, then I watched it, and I was like, ''Ohhhh. I get it now.''

-The outfits

I honestly wouldn't mind owning some of Veronica's outfits myself [what can I say? The girl's got style], but all of the Heathers have a signature color. Heather Chandler's is red, Heather Duke's is green, Heather McNamara's is yellow, and Veronica's is blue. Red signifies power, so whoever has red sort of shows who's the queen bee. To sum things up, there's a power dynamic based around a red scrunchie. And I love it.

-The uniqueness. It's not necessarily a weird movie, but it's pretty different from lots of other movies I've seen. And that's now, with a fair share of movies being influenced by it. It's vastly different from most '80s movies I've seen [and I've seen my fair share, and I love the ones I've seen]. Anyway, I like the uniqueness of it.

-I know I've already mentioned characters, but here's a special mention to Veronica. Winona Ryder was the perfect choice to play her, and she's such a unique heroine.

I mean, she wears a monocle every time she writes in her diary. A MONOCLE, PEOPLE. And her sarcastic responses to just about everything are the greatest. And she's such a complex character, and I loooove her. 

What I Didn't Like

I honestly don't know if there was anything I disliked about this movie [I am seriously the worst critic ever, I know]. I mean, some characters were jerks but that was the point of their character. There was also a lot of content and a lot of language, but it didn't really bother me, sooooo moving on.

Characters

Veronica Sawyer is the main character of the movie, and, man, what an interesting main character she is. I kind of already talked about her, but I'm sure there's more to say about her. She's smart, she's snarky, she wears blue, she makes horrible decisions, but is kind of a good person at heart. Maybe? I mean, she obviously felt bad for all the stuff Heather had her do, and the things she did with J.D, and she did stop his grand plan, so she gets points for that. Anyway, I liked her character, and I thought she was an interesting protagonist.

Jason 'J.D' Dean is Veronica's love interest, and completely insane. I won't deny that he did seem kind of cool at the beginning of the film, and then *shudders*. He was a good character, and very interesting. My sister, Marie, can't stand his voice, which doesn't have to do with the character, but I think that's pretty funny.

Heather Chandler is the school's resident queen bee, and she's honestly a huge jerk [not enough to die, of course, but still]. I will say that her insults are killer, and she's pretty iconic herself. She was a well-written, interesting character, though she doesn't get a lot of screen time [on account of the whole dying thing].

Heather Duke is the second member of the Heathers. At first she seems like a relatively nice girl [for a Heather, anyway], but then she turns out to be not so nice. It's so hard to talk about her without giving away spoilers, but, again, she was a solid character, and well-written. I feel like she got the most screen time of the Heathers [unless we're counting Veronica as a Heather]. There's not much else to say about her, so moving on.

Heather McNamara is the third Heather, and she's the least mean of the Heathers. I mean, she's not exactly nice, but she's not nearly as bad as most of the other characters in the movie. She's a little bit dumb, but not to the extent of Karen in Mean Girls or something. I mean, she was well-written, but she didn't get a lot of screen time, so I don't know what I think of her. Like, she's nice, but she's a bit underdeveloped. She does have some depth, though, and I don't hate her by any means.

There are other characters, but none of them were in it that much, so they won't be included. Like I said earlier, I thought it was a really good movie. It's a creative idea, the dialogue is great, the characters are well-written, it's hilarious, etc.

It's rated R, so if you're not a fan of dark comedies, and language bothers you, don't watch it. I honestly thought there'd be more content than what there was [not that there wasn't some, I just thought it'd be worse]. So, it really depends on the person, but I'd definitely recommend it.

Have you seen Heathers? If so, did you like it? Favorite character? If you haven't, do you want to?