"Heathers" 1988

"Heathers"

I had lunch with a high school friend yesterday named Heather.

Heather McNamara: It's your turn Heather.
Heather Chandler: No, Heather, it's Heather's turn. Heather?
Heather Duke: Sorry Heather.

Luckily she was not like these girls at all. But in 1988, the year we graduated as well as the year this movie was released, Heather was a very popular name and this is a great movie about high school. I love the melodrama that really defines high school. Everything is the end of the world and we could just die of humiliation on a regular basis. Who hasn’t wanted to take out our nemesis? How often were our best friends also our nemesis?

Veronica Sawyer: She's my best friend. God, I hate her.

Winona Ryder is Veronica. Veronica is tortured and writes her angst down in her journal. Somehow she ended up in the popular crowd. The other three are all named Heather. She is condemned to her popularity until J.D. shows up in the form of Christian Slater doing his best Jack Nicholson impression. He is too cool for school.

J.D.: Is your life perfect?
Veronica Sawyer: I'm on my way to a party at Remington University... No, my life's not perfect. I don't really like my friends.
J.D.: I... I don't really like your friends either.
Veronica Sawyer: Well, it's just like - they're people I work with, and our job is being popular and $hit.
J.D.: Maybe it's time to take a vacation.

Soon J.D. and Veronica are a couple with a plan. Veronica thinks it is general mayhem, but J.D. has planned first degree murder.

First they take out the Queen Bee of the Heathers.

Then they take out a couple of jocks. Veronica thinks it is blanks, but they end up really pretty dead. In an effort to cover up their crimes, J.D. plants some evidence to make it look like a murder suicide.

J.D.: Well, ah... Let's take a look at some of the homosexual artifacts I dug up to plant at the scene.
[He picks up a shopping bag and pulls items out of it]
J.D.: All right. Got an issue of "Stud Puppy."
Veronica Sawyer: Great!
[She laughs]
J.D.: Candy dish. Joan Crawford postcard. Let's see, some mascara. All right. And here's the one perfecto thing I picked up. Mineral water.
Veronica Sawyer: Oh, come on, a lot of people drink mineral water, it's come a long way.
J.D.: Yeah, but this is Ohio. I mean, if you don't have a brewski in your hand you might as well be wearing a dress.
Veronica Sawyer: Oh, you're so smart.

Their funeral is very funny.

Kurt's Dad: My son's a homosexual, and I love him. I love my dead gay son.
J.D.: Wonder how he'd react if his son had a limp wrist with a pulse.

It also make Veronica think that maybe her issue is not the other popular kids, but it may be J.D.

Veronica Sawyer: You're a rebel? You think you're a rebel? You're not a rebel you're f**king psychotic!

The movie is full of the eighties. There are shoulder pads the size a football pads. There is pate’ and keggers. Of course this was movie eighties, not real life eighties. Real life was slumber parties in my friend’s basement. Eating pizza and watching videos. I was definitely not the “In-Crowd”.

I have told my son many times over the years he was in high school that anyone that told him that these were the best years of his life were full of crap. It would be sad to be over the best years at seventeen or eighteen. This movie is a great dark fantasy. I love the end when Veronica goes head to head with J.D. and after blowing him to bits take the crown from the last Heather.

It was great.