Last of the Monster Kids

Last of the Monster Kids
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Thursday, May 19, 2022

Director Report Card: Michael Lehmann (1988)


Sometimes, these Director Report Card projects happen because a filmmaker has a deep filmography full of classics. Sometimes, it's because a director's trademarks are so immediately recognizable that you almost have to talk about their work within the context of their entire career. And sometimes, I do these things just because someone happened to make one of my all time favorite movies. This is the case with Michael Lehmann. Here's a guy whose career has had some wild ups and downs in quality. He's spent the last twenty years mostly directing television. But he also made “Heathers,” a movie that I've loved for almost as long as I've been passionate about film. So here I am, talking about all his movies mostly so I can talk about one of his movies... Yet maybe Lehmann's deep cuts contain some oddball surprises too. 



In 1986, Daniel Waters was working at a video store and had an idea. After absorbing one John Hughes high school movie after another, he decided to write the ultimate high school movie. Or, rather, an evisceration of the American high school movie that would run four hours and be directed by Stanley Kubrick. The script never crossed Kubrick's desk but it did catch the attention of Michael Lehmann, an up-and-coming filmmaker. He took the project, now entitled “Heathers,” to Denise Di Novi, then an executive at New World Pictures. Somehow, Di Novi looked at this ambitious, caustic project and decided to make it into a movie. Of course, the rest is history. “Heathers” would prove impossible to sell in 1989 but very quickly became one of the premier cult movies of its time. And it has remained one of my favorites for many years. 

Westerburg High in Sherman, Ohio is ruled with an iron fist by the Heathers. That's a trio of teen girls, each named Heather, who are the school's most popular (and most ruthless) students. This trio is made a quartet by Veronica, a more sensitive and intelligent girl who is increasingly questioning her decision to become one of the popular girls. That is when J.D., a mysterious would-be rebel at the school known for pulling a gun on a pair of jocks, catches her eye. The two fall into a whirlwind romance. After a shitty night at a party with one of the Heathers, J.D. tricks Veronica into poisoning her friend. They frame the death of Heather Chandler as a suicide, Veronica forging a suicide note. The incident unexpectedly causes the entire school to reassess Heather's personality and sets off a media frenzy. And its the first of a killing spree J.D. has pulled Veronica into, each one disguised as a suicide. 

When Waters conceived of “Heathers,” teenage suicide was becoming a hot button topic in American culture. It's never really stopped being one, adults everywhere still wondering why young people might want to take their own lives. Yet “Heathers” really gets at the heart of why teenage suicide is such a topic of fascination for grown-ups and the media. When the vicious Heather Chandler dies, she's embraced as a tragic figure by the faculty and student body. When hyper-macho jocks Kurt and Ram (seemingly) kill each other in a homoerotic murder/suicide pact, a pair of bullying meat-heads become deeper figures. Nobody is actually interested in understanding or knowing who these kids were. Instead, they all mean something different to everyone. The fictional deaths of this film, and the real ones that occur all the time, become blank slates that any message or feeling can be projected onto. Look at the way every school shooting – a topic “Heathers” grimly predicts in some ways – is followed by endless speculation and debate in the media but almost never by serious attempts to address the problems that cause these tragedies. 

Even though “Heathers” is a movie about teenage suicide, it actually contains very few teenage suicides. In fact, it's more accurately described as a movie about teenage murder. And, at least in movies, murder can sometimes be cathartic. As is reiterated several times throughout the film, the high school in “Heathers” is American society in microcosm with social clout standing in for money or power. The Heathers and Kurts and Rams of the school have lots of it, usually using their status to degrade and torment the lower classes of the school: The nerds that Ram attacks and call a gay slur or Martha “Dumptruck,” a morbidly obese student who is a frequent target of the Heathers' bullying. Do the Heathers deserve to die? Probably not, as they are just teenage girls themselves with traumas and complications in their own lives. Heather Chandler is desperate to be accepted into a good college and performs sexual favors on date-rapist frat boys to gain their favor. Heather McNamara is a target of bullying herself and suffers from an eating disorder. Yet the movie's opinion on the power structures and forces of oppression that the Heathers represent is less ambiguous.

Part of why “Heathers” can get away with such arch social satire is because it so clearly takes place in a world that is unlike our own. From the very first scene, the colors are a little brighter, a little more exaggerated. Even by the standards of the late eighties, the fashion seen here is a little more ridiculous than it was in reality. The shoulder pads, pastel colors, and big hair of the time are crossed with a somehow more retro, 1950s aesthetic. The weird sweater/mini-skirt combination Winona Ryder wears to the college party seems just on the other side of actual goofy eighties fashion. Each of the Heathers have a primary color that takes up most of their wardrobe – Chandler is red, McNamara is yellow, and Duke is green – as if they're Power Rangers or something. This unreal approach is also apparent in the slightly surreal set designs, from the elaborate bedrooms of the teen girls to the perfectly organized chaos of a classroom. By the time actual dream sequences are occurring, with even more bizarre set designs and visuals, you've long since accepted “Heathers'” weird world. 

Nothing about “Heathers” establishes its own unique world better than the dialogue. Daniel Waters intentionally made the slang as stylized as possible, so that the film would not be instantly dated by any contemporary teenage phrases. Much like the outfit, the dialogue is absurd and exaggerated. Character describe situations as “very.” People inquire about someone else’s “damage.” People munch on turbo dogs from the Snappy Snack Shack. More than anything else, Waters displays an ability to craft hilariously surreal one-liners. “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw” and “I love my dead, gay son!” are only the most often quoted lines. The film is packed from beginning to end with unforgettable quotes and hysterical exchanges. The combination of writing, acting, and editing even manages to make single words — “Cornnuts!” “Eskimo!” — huge generators of laughs. 

Within “Heathers'” absurd world, further truths about the real world are revealed. Veronica sought to become one of the cool kids, leaving behind her true friend, nerdy and mousy Betty Flynn, for the cruel and demanding Heathers. Ultimately, she finds the life of the popular kid deeply unsatisfying. Her attempts to rebel against her new style drag her into J.D.'s murderous scheme, itself a toxic structure she must escape. Veronica isn't truly free until she casts aside the entire idea that there's a system, that must be functioned within or rebelled against, at all. In a world full of movies about high school cliques and fitting in, "Heathers" argues for real nonconformity. 

Through this premise, Lehman and Waters eviscerate the hollowness of trends. There are references throughout to real life fads, like swatches. Veronica’s dad reads spy novels and eats pate, even though he dislikes them, presumably because these are trendy things to do. The fictional band in the movie, Big Fun, advertise themselves with white T-shirts with big black lettering in them, recalling both Wham! and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. That band and their hit signal, “Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It!),” is probably the movie’s most absurd parody. Eventually, the teen suicide itself becomes something of a fad within the movie’s world, seemingly everyone eager to try it. These are all attempts by the people to fit in within a social structure that hates any deviation from the expected and the norm. J.D. uses this tendency towards conformity to seal the school’s fate, putting together a petition under a false pretense. It’s a world, not all that different from our own, where drinking mineral water is enough to make a man a homosexual. Where the date-raping, cow-tipping Rams and Kurts, where the authoritarian bullies like the Heathers, attack anyone deemed an outsider. 

I’ve spent most of this review praising Waters’ writing but Michael Lehman, the cinematographer, and the editor, deserve a lot of credit too. They say comedy is timing, a rule that is observed in “Heathers.” A montage near the beginning, concerning the collection of answers to a nonsensical lunch time poll, is so perfectly cut for maximum laughs. You see this precise editorial instinct in later moments, when the sad truth about Veronica and Heather McNamara’s double-date with the jocks is revealed. Lehman’s eye is excellent in general, visible in that wonderful moody nightmare sequence or interesting visual touches, like looking up at a ladder as it’s leaned against a house. 

If there’s any flaw in Waters’ script, it’s that Veronica and J.D.’s relationship seems a little unlikely. He’s charming, and they’re both impulsive teenagers, so it’s not too difficult to swallow that the two would have sex so soon after first meeting. Once the killing starts though, the script has to go to some lengths to convince that someone as smart and observant as Veronica would be so easily duped. These are very logical observations but they don’t account for something important and totally unpredictable: Chemistry. There’s something in the way that J.D. touches Veronica that makes her go wild, that makes her throw all reason out the window. That’s why the two are making out minutes after killing the jocks. He’s a psycho and a calculated manipulator but he ignites something in her.

The casting has a lot to do with why that works too. Winona Ryder was cast as Veronica after filming “Beetlejuice” but before it was released, so she wasn’t really a known quantity just yet. She had to beg to get the part, as the producers wanted Justine Bateman or Jennifer Connelly. Ryder, of course, is completely perfect as Veronica. She has every quality needed for the character to work. Ryder is gifted with a unique ability for withering sarcasm and biting line delivery. Yet there’s also something incredibly vulnerable and youthful about her, which makes you buy her getting swept up in a crazy passion with J.D. Honestly, Veronica shouldn’t be sympathetic. She willingly covers up three murders and goes along with a completely insane plan for way longer than any reasonable person should. But because Winona Ryder is so totally lovable and charming, you have no problem following the character. That’s the reason why I don’t think “Heathers” would have worked with anyone else in the lead. 

If Ryder has been rightly praised for her work in “Heathers,” I feel like her co-lead is sometimes unfairly dismissed. Christian Slater’s acting as J.D. — whose name invokes classical images of teenage rebellion like James Dean — is often reduced to “he’s doing a Jack Nicholson impersonation.” I think that’s just how Christian Slater talks but, okay, that’s fair. Yet I do think Slater does some good acting here. J.D. is incredibly charismatic, swaggering into every scene with an edgy, eye-catching energy that demands attention. He’s cool, undeniably so. Slater is aware enough to never let that solely define J.D. though. He’s also a manipulative, calculating killer with a demented master plan, a heightened emotion that Slater also excels at. Both the performer and the script are smart enough to rip through J.D.’s cool guy persona and allowed a wounded, vulnerable psyche to show through in key moments as well. 

Honestly, I don’t think “Heathers” would have worked if every single member of the cast hadn’t bought completely into Lehman and Waters’ weirdo vision. You see that commitment in Penelope Milford, as lisping touchy-feely Miss Fleming, or Glenn Shadix as the bloviating preacher at the multiple funerals. Waters’ script is so sharp that even minor roles can get standout moments. Like Jennifer Rhodes and Bill Cort, as Veronica’s parents, who get amazing lines about bunny rabbits or how teenagers are treated. Even the cops who discover Ram and Kurt's corpses are hilarious. I love the way the one officer stops and poses with his gun in the middle of the chase, like he's in a cop show or something. The Heathers are perfectly cast too, with Kim Walker and Shannon Doherty summoning fantastically bitchy vibes as Heathers Chandler and Duke, while Lisanne Falk is a desperately frayed nerve end as the depressed Heather McNamara. The only actor in the movie not on the film’s exaggerated wavelength is Renee Estavez as Betty Finn. But that’s okay, because her totally sincere sweetness is the ideal contrast to all the cynicism in the rest of the movie. 

Obviously, I love this movie and don't see too many flaws in it. If there's any element of the film I would contest, it would be the ending. Or, at least, the ending we got. It's a well known piece of “Heathers” lore that Daniel Waters' originally intended vision is very different from what was finally released. Originally, Veronica would have successfully killed J.D. in the boiler room beneath the school but not been able to deactivate the bomb. A dramatic cut to black would follow, heavily implying that the entire school went up in flames. The film would then conclude with a musical number at the prom, where all the different students from different social statuses would dance together. This was in reference to an earlier line from J.D., about Heaven being the only place where different people can truly get along with each other. It would be a brilliant, audacious, insanely dark conclusion. How much of this footage was shot seems to be unknown. 

Understandably, some people thought concluding a movie about teenagers with almost every single character dying in a massive fireball might be a little too dark, even for this film. So a new ending was quickly assembled. And, boy, that is obvious. J.D. surviving the shootout in the basement, walking out front with a bomb strapped to his chest, never felt right to me. Exploding himself outside the school always felt like a compromise. Veronica's final confrontation with Heather Duke is good and I don't dislike her extending a branch of friendship to Martha Dumptruck... But it still feels off that such a sharp, biting movie ends on a very sentimental note. I think the destruction of the entire social system that made assholes like the Heathers possible was the better ending, as downbeat as it might have seen. (Another ending, something of a compromise between the two, was also floated but never seriously considered.)

New World Pictures might've hoped to make “Heathers” more marketable by giving it that jollier ending but it was no use. A comedy about teenage suicide and murder proved a hard sell and the film would flop at the box office in 1989. Internationally, attempts would be made to sell it as either a horror film or an erotic thriller. (New World was also going bankrupt at the time, which was surely as much of a factor as anything else.) Of course, time has been exceedingly kind to “Heathers.” It would be reclaimed as a cult classic very quickly and its influence has spread far and wide across the pop culture landscape. The film with the audience alienating premise has even been adapted into a successful stage musical and a (short-lived, largely despised) TV series. The world around it has unquestionably changed but the creators of “Heathers” succeeded in making a timeless dark comedy that viciously, hilariously questions the power structures of high school and beyond. [Grade: A+]

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