And while I'm writing about old favourites...
I first came across Heathers entirely inadvertently, on tv, back in high school - having happened to tune in near its start, I was transfixed by the film's unhinged, blackly comic progression and uncritically fell in love with it. It's the first film that I thought of as my 'favourite' (in a similar way, "#1 Crush" was my first 'favourite' song), and quite possibly the one that clued me in to the fact that movies could actually be worthwhile (I think that it was fairly shortly thereafter that I came across The City of Lost Children - but that's a whole other story).
I'm not sure how aware I was of this at the time, but in retrospect it seems entirely natural that Heathers should have appealed to me as it did - its undiluted cynicism and acerbic perspective on teenagerhood, high school and larger society, and the disaffectedness writ large of its central protagonists, could hardly have been better calculated to strike a chord with me. The unsparing, dark satire obviously spoke to my inner misanthropist (not so very far from the surface at that time) and the more bizarre and ridiculous elements of the film must also have resonated - not to mention how funny it is. And I know that I was drawn in by the unique, quotable vernacular - much of which is still woven, for better or for worse, into the rhythms of my own speech - and the black-edged adolescent cool of JD and Veronica (it was certainly the start of my Winona fandom thing). All in all, it was just the kind of fantasy that I needed in those times.
So anyway, I watched it once more after that initial encounter (probably while still in high school), but not again since then, I don't think. This was partly because it's not easy to track down on video, partly because I didn't want to taint my memory of the film (for of course it came to assume semi-mythic proportions in my mind, as do all works of art which touch me in this way), and partly because on some level I suspected that I had, maybe, grown out of it, with the latter two reasons becoming more and more important as the years went on.
But, all of that said, I've been meaning to pick it up on dvd for a while now, and, upon spotting it a few days ago, promptly did so and rewatched it last night - and now, what to say but that I still love it as much as ever? It may no longer be absolutely my favourite film (well, I no longer have an absolutely favourite film, but even if I did, Heathers wouldn't be it), and I may nowadays be more likely to turn to a Lost in Translation or a Three Colours: Blue for solace, but Heathers is still brilliant. It still burns - and, if I no longer feel it as immediately or intensely as in the past, the passage of time has allowed me to better appreciate its intelligence, insight and subversiveness. The extras are good value, but, as interesting as it was to learn, for example, that Jennifer Connelly was originally cast in the role of Veronica (her mother refused to allow her to take up the role due to the 'anti-social' nature of the film...impossible though it is for me to see anyone other than Winona Ryder as Veronica, I have to admit that Connelly would've been pretty good, too), for me everything else will always be secondary to that original, mind-opening experience of the film itself.
