Clueless Heathers

Recently I caught two older movies I’d neglected over the years because the subject matter wasn’t really my “cup of Lipton Diet Green Tea with Mixed Berries”.   They turned out to be entertaining notwithstanding the foregoing assessment, which also remained accurate.

Clueless (1995).   Alicia Silverstone’s major role, from 1995.   She plays a ditzy high school girl (Cher, named after the famous singer/actress) who is the head of her clique.   Actually she’s fairly bright, the clever part about this being that her intelligence is hidden behind her ostensible vapidness and almost exclusive focus on contemporary pop culture.   Paul Rudd plays her step-brother, Dan Hedaya plays her father (an overworked but powerful attorney), and Jeremy Sisto is here in an early role as a heart-throb.   Brittany Murphy plays a fashion-challenged new arrival who Cher takes under her wing.  The clever part of the film is that it’s like a macrocosm of Cher herself:  witty and intelligent despite an otherwise non-special subject matter and lead character.  The early appearance of cell phones and reference to Mark Wahlberg as “Marky Mark” (back when he was a rap artist and not a serious actor) are amusing elements dating this to the mid-1990s.  

Heathers (1985).   With Winona Ryder acting as the worried mom in “Stranger Things”, it’s fun to see her so young here, even looking like a well-coiffed and dressed predecessor to Eleven herself.

Shannon Doherty is one of three abusive Heathers at a high school in Ohio.  A much-younger Winona Ryder is the girl, Veronica, trying to fit in with them, which means she has to do whatever mean things they ask her to do.  She befriends fellow student J.D. (Christian Slater) who is somewhat strange and off-balance, but nonetheless handsome and charming in his own way.  They engineer the deaths of the Heathers – and an abusive pair of jocks - but make them look like accidents or suicide.   Eventually Veronica reaches a point where she no longer agrees with J.D.’s agenda.  Overall a kind of dark and cynical “high school revenge” story, somewhat entertaining.  I can’t say that was the case at ASP (1982-86) but I can understand if others going to high school at the same time might sympathize with Veronica more than I did.  Though as dark and cynical as this film is, the subject matter doesn’t come close to “Stranger Things”.