Heathers
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| Heathers | |
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| Directed by | Michael Lehmann |
| Produced by | Denise Di Novi |
| Written by | Daniel Waters |
| Starring | Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty |
| Distributed by | New World Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  March 31, 1989 17 November 1989 19 April 1990 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Heathers is a 1989 black comedy film starring Winona Ryder, Shannen Doherty, and Christian Slater. It is widely viewed as a classic teen film of the 1980s, considered revolutionary at the time because of its high levels of violence, cruelty, black humor and absurdity, especially for a movie set in high school, and is often considered one of the finest black comedies ever made. It was written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann. On its release, the film was seen as a stiff response to the gentler and more romanticized view of high school and teenage culture put forth in the movies of John Hughes.
In the film, three out of the four girls in a trend-setting clique at Westerberg High are called Heather. They play croquet with each other and rule the school through intimidation, contempt, and sex appeal. One of the central themes of the movie is that people who want their high schools to be kinder places are deluded—high school is not a safe haven from the world, it is the world in microcosm; and "when children complain that they want to be treated like human beings, it's usually because they ARE being treated like human beings."
Heathers brought Lehmann and producer Denise Di Novi the 1990 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and screenwriter Waters received a 1990 Edgar Award for his work. The film was a US box office failure, but has since become a cult classic film.
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[edit] Plot description
Heathers centers on a high school student named Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder). Veronica is part of the most popular clique in Westerburg High School in Sherwood, a fictional suburb of Columbus, Ohio. In addition to Veronica, the clique is composed of three pretty and wealthy girls with the same first name: Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) and Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk). The girls play croquet with each other, are mean-spirited, use their own unique slang, and play cruel pranks on people. Even though they are worshipped and adored, the Heathers despise everyone who isn't in their clique, and continuously bully socially awkward classmates like the overweight Martha "Dumptruck" Dunnstock. Veronica finds her "friendship" with the tyrannical Heathers both tempting and repellent, as it is mostly based on peer pressure, domination and vanity. She even says that they're not really her friends, just people she hangs out with because it's her "job" being popular.
Veronica wasn't always in the Heathers clique. Although it is never fully explained how she ascended to popularity, it is made clear that she used to be good friends with one of the school's biggest nerds, Betty Finn. She is also clearly smarter and far more compassionate than any of her Heather cohorts. When a new, rebellious boy named Jason Dean (Christian Slater), or J.D. for short, pulls a gun on school bullies Kurt (Lance Fenton) and Ram (Patrick Labyorteaux), and fires blanks at them, Veronica is intrigued.
Soon Veronica and J.D. are dating, and he accompanies her on an early morning visit to Heather Chandler's home. Veronica is furious with Heather Chandler's behaviour at a frat party and the two of them jokingly prepare a cup full of drain cleaner to bring her as a morning wake-up drink. Veronica vetoes the drain cleaner plan, and decides on milk and orange juice as a vomit-inducing prank, but J.D. distracts her with a kiss and gives her the wrong glass. As a result, Heather Chandler downs the drain cleaner and begins to heave and spasm, collapsing face first into a glass table and dying.
Realizing that she is the unintentional perpetrator of her best friend's murder, Veronica succumbs to J.D.'s urging and forges a suicide note in Heather Chandler's handwriting. Veronica does so only to protect herself from prosecution. The entire school and community looks on Heather Chandler's death as a hip, if dramatic, decision in the life of a popular but troubled teenager, and everyone accepts the suicide note as authentic. Soon Heather's death becomes yesterday's news.
Weeks later, J.D. concocts a plan to punish bullies Ram and Kurt for spreading sexual gossip about Veronica. He tells her that they will lure the two guys into the forest with the promise of a three-way with Veronica to "make the rumors true". Once the bullies have stripped down to their boxer shorts, Veronica and J.D. will shoot them with "Ich Lüge" bullets; fake bullets that will stun them unconscious long enough for Veronica and J.D. to flee. They will leave behind allegedly homosexually-oriented materials including pornographic magazines and bottled-water as well as a fake suicide note that will make it look like the two killed each other in a gay suicide pact. When they awaken, they will be humiliated.
Veronica agrees, thinking the plan is hilarious, but when she misfires and one of them doesn't get shot, J.D. goes running after him desperately. Veronica instantly realizes that the bullets were real ("Ich lüge" means "I'm lying" in German) and J.D. had intended to kill the two boys all along. J.D. manages to chase the unshot boy in a circle so that he ends up back where they started, and Veronica, in a frightened daze, shoots him dead. The plan goes off without a hitch when the boys' bodies are discovered and the two school football stars are "revealed" to be gay lovers. (In one of the more memorable moments of the film, one boy's father is seen at a funeral with a football in his hand crying out "I love my dead gay son!")
Suddenly Veronica is sucked into a world that she never intended to be a part of. Although the people they are killing were not particularly good or nice (in fact they could be downright awful and nasty to some of the less popular kids), she feels guilt for their murders. Additionally, because they were popular, other students are mimicking their behavior and attempting suicides. Most notably, obese student Martha "Dumptruck" Dunnstock (Carrie Lynn) pins a suicide note to her chest and walks into traffic. (She is not killed; instead she is horribly wounded and wheelchair bound.)
Veronica realizes she has to stop participating in these crimes with J.D., but when she tells him, he goes nuts. He reveals his plan to kill Heather Duke next, and hints that he might try to kill Veronica. Veronica, expecting him to find her and kill her, rigs a harness in her room to make it look like she has hanged herself. J.D. discovers her "body" and leaves, heartbroken. (Veronica's mother (Jennifer Rhodes) also discovers her just before she unties herself, getting quite a scare.) Before J.D. leaves, however, he reveals that he intends to blow up the entire school during a pep rally. A petition he has been circulating to get the band "Big Fun" to play was actually a cleverly disguised suicide note that almost the entire school has signed.
Veronica heads to school the next day and confronts J.D. in the boiler rooms where he is rigging dynamite to go off. They get into a gunfight where Veronica shoots off J.D.'s middle finger. After a further struggle she apparently kills J.D. and as he collapses the knife he was carrying cuts into the timer, stopping the bomb. She then walks out through the pep rally with everyone cheering, ignorant of the fate that was so close. The severely injured J.D. follows her outside and detonates a bomb that is strapped around his chest. The final shot of the film is of Veronica, ash laden and bleeding, walking through the halls of the school. She confronts Heather Duke, telling her "There's a new sheriff in town." As she delivers the line, she rips a red bow from Heather Duke's hair (the bow which Heather Chandler is known to wear, which J.D. had given Heather Duke) and puts it in her own hair. She then starts up a friendly discussion with Martha Dunnstock.
[edit] Quotes
- Heather Chandler: Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?
- Veronica Sawyer: Watch it, Heather, you might be digesting food there.
Heather McNamara: Yeah, where's your urge to purge?
Heather Duke: Fuck it. - Heather Chandler: Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. No one at Westerberg is going to let you play their reindeer games.
- Veronica Sawyer: It's one thing to want someone out of your life, but it's another thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid drainer.
- Veronica Sawyer: Betty Finn was a true friend and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatch dogs and Diet Coke heads. Killing Heather would be like offing the wicked witch of the west... wait east. West! God! I sound like a fucking psycho.
- Heather Chandler: God, Veronica. My afterlife is so BORING. If I have to sing "Kumbaya" one more time...
- Veronica Sawyer: What is your damage, Heather?
- J.D.: Our love is God, let's go get a Slushie.
- Veronica Sawyer: My parents wanted to move me into high school out of the sixth grade, but we decided to chuck the idea because I'd have trouble making friends, blah, blah, blah. Now blah, blah, blah is all I ever do. I use my grand IQ to decide what color lip gloss to wear in the morning and how to hit three keggers before curfew...
- J.D.: (reading from his petition) “We, students at Westerburg High, will die. Today. Our burning bodies will be the ultimate protest to a society that degrades us. Fuck you all!"
- Heather Chandler: Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?
- Veronica Sawyer: Why are you such a mega bitch?
Heather Duke: Because I can be. - Veronica Sawyer: Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.
- Heather Chandler: I got you into a Remington party and what's my thanks? It's on a hallway carpet. I got paid in PUKE.
Veronica Sawyer: Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up. - Heather Duke: Veronica... why are you pulling my dick?
- Heather Duke: (at the coffin of Heather Chandler) I prayed for the death of Heather Chandler many times. And I felt bad everytime I did it but I kept doing it anyway. (smiles) Now I know you understood everything. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah!
[edit] Special Edition DVD
In 2001, a Multi Region Special Edition DVD was released from Anchor Bay in Dolby Digital 5.1., the DVD was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe. In 2004 a Limited Edition DVD set of Heathers was released, and only 15,000 were produced. The set contained:
- Audio Commentary with Director Michael Lehmann, Producer Denise Di Novi and Writer Daniel Waters
- Swatch Dogs And Diet Cokeheads: An all new 30-minute documentary featuring interviews with Stars Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Director Michael Lehmann, Writer Daniel Waters, Producer Denise Di Novi, Director of Photography Francis Kenny and Editor Norman Hollyn
- Theatrical Trailer
- Screenplay Excerpt: Original Ending
- Talent Bios
- 10 Page Full-Color Fold-Out with Photos and Liner Notes
- 8" "Heathers Rules!" Ruler
- 48-Page Full-Color "Yearbook Style" Booklet with Rare Photos and More
[edit] Alternate Ending
On the DVD edition of Heathers, the "special features" section contains the script for an alternate ending which was considered too dark for teen audiences and nixed by New World Pictures, the distributor.
In the alternate ending, J.D. dies in the boiler room, and Veronica is shown walking through the school, though only from the back. This is interrupted by shots of the bomb counting down, showing that Veronica had not shut it off. When she reaches the front of the school, Veronica turns around, allowing the viewer to see that the bomb was strapped to her chest. It hits zero, the screen turns black, and Veronica says, "Boom." Then black letters tell the viewer that this is the prom. A banner hangs, saying "WHAT A WASTE, OH THE HUMANITY".
The students begin to dance, at first sticking with those of the same or similar social cliques. Then, when it is time for prom pictures, people from different cliques are couples. A geek and a stoner pose together, then Pauline Fleming (Penelope Milford) and Principal Gowan (John Ingle). Kurt, now alive, has his picture taken with the cow he had tipped. Mismatched couples continue to appear, and dead characters make their own appearances. J.D. plays a "smoking hot" guitar solo, then rushes to the dance floor to dance with Heather Duke, Kurt, and finally Heather Chandler. The Heathers do a ring-around-the-rosey. The camera is moved up to reveal Martha Dunnstock, wailing beautifully. The viewpoint is then lifted even higher to show a smiling Veronica in a "striking pose."
Those who have not seen the movie or who did not pay attention will not understand the implications of this ending. In order for the scene to be understood, one must remember that J.D. tells Veronica, in defense of his actions, that "the only place different social types can genuinely get along is in Heaven." Through this quote, it becomes clear that the people of Westerburg High had all died. This explains the mingling of social groups, as well as the reappearance of those who died at prom.
Despite the change of the endings, the movie failed at the box-office when released. (The Swatch Dogs And Diet Cokeheads documentary blames the box-office failure on poor marketing due to the studio's financial problems.) However, since then it has developed into a very strong and prominent cult classic, and has made a significant impact on teenage films.
[edit] Trivia
- The croquet games have a large significance in the movie, as the characters mostly dress in clothes and inhabit surroundings of their ball color. When the three Heathers and Veronica play, red, yellow, green, and blue are played by Heathers Chandler, McNamara, and Duke, and Veronica Sawyer, respectively. When J.D. and Veronica play "strip croquet" you can see that Veronica was, as always, playing blue, and J.D. was playing black. During her brief croquet stint, Betty Finn plays orange, though she does never wear orange in the film. Significantly, after Heather Chandler's death, Heather Duke starts wearing and playing red. There is even something to be said of their affinity for these colors: Heather Chandler is vibrant and popular (red), Heather McNamara is cowardly (yellow), Veronica is depressed and introspective (blue), Heather Duke is envious of Heather Chandler (green), and J.D. is dark and mysterious (black).
- Nancy Marchand, best known as Livia on The Sopranos, appears as a teacher but is uncredited.
- The fictional Westerberg High School is named for musician Paul Westerberg.
- Daniel Waters wrote the film for Stanley Kubrick, but struggled greatly to get the script sent to him.
- In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Heathers the 32nd greatest comedy film of all time.
- Filmed in 32 days.
- Westerberg High in reality is John Adams Middle School.
- Brad Pitt auditioned for the role of J.D., but was rejected because he was considered "too nice" for the part.
- Two stars of this movie died at an early age: Jeremy Applegate, who played Peter Dawson, committed suicide using a shotgun on March 23, 2000; and Kim Walker who starred as Heather Chandler, died of a brain tumor on March 6, 2001. Morbidly, one of Kim's memorable lines from Heathers was "Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?"
- The role of Veronica was intended for Jennifer Connelly.
- Producer Denise Di Novi mentions on the DVD commentary that the filmmakers wanted to use the original Doris Day version of "Que Sera Sera" for the film's soundtrack. Day wouldn't participate in a project that used profanity, and Di Novi stated when her father was a session musician for Day, he and the other musicians had to put money in a 'swear jar'.
- There are two actual Sherwood, Ohios; one is outside Cincinnati, Ohio, the other outside Defiance, Ohio
- Heather Duke's copy of Moby Dick was originally intended to be The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The reason for the swap was because the producers of the film were unable to get legal permission to use references to J.D. Salinger's novel.[citation needed]
- This movie ranked number 5 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.)
[edit] Spoofs, Influences and References to Heathers
Heathers status as a classic black comedy has led to various spoofs, references and influences of the film. Here is a list, which is by no means complete:
- The obscure 1976 film Massacre at Central High has a similar plot, and almost certainly influenced Heathers, although the oppressive clique in that film consists of four boys rather than four girls.
- Veronica and her not-so-popular friend have combination first and last names that go together (Betty and Veronica, from Archie Comics, and Sawyer and Finn, from Tom Sawyer)
- Tina Fey, the writer of Mean Girls, considers 'Heathers' "the hardcore version of 'Mean Girls' ." Mean Girls is also somewhat based on Heathers.
- Post-hardcore band From First to Last took the title of their album Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count from a quote by Veronica in Heathers ("Dear diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.").
- The idea of cliques of popular adolescent girls that all share the same name has been constantly copied, including the Casper Saturday morning cartoon and in The Oblongs (The "Debbies") and the ABC cartoon Recess with 'The Ashleys' (although The Ashleys are supposed to be pre-adolescents).
- In the season 4 finale of Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gilmore shoves Rory Gilmore down some steps, prompting her to say "What's your damage, Heather?", a line featured in the film numerous times.
- In an episode Will & Grace, Will says “what’s your damage, Heather?” to Grace.
- In 1998, Shannen Doherty became one of the three leads on the WB series Charmed, and Jennifer Rhodes (who played Veronica's mother in Heathers) had a recurring role as her grandmother.
- In an episode of Will & Grace, Will references Heathers when he says “Ok, I’ll let you two Heather girls, get back to your Heathering”, after Jack and Karen start bitching about Will.
- The song "Death Toll Confirmed" by Index for a Potential Suicide features an audio clip from Heathers with the line "We students of Westerburg High will die. Today, our burning bodies will be the ultimate protest to a society that degrades us. Fuck you all."
