The Hollywood Reporter – 28.02.2018

Reviews

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 192 FEBRUARY 28, 2018

HEATHERS

: MICHAEL YARISH/PARAMOUNT NETWORK.

UNSANE

: COURTESY OF BLEECKER STREET MEDIA. WATSON: DAVE J HOGAN/GETTY IMAGES. ROCK: JOHN SHEARER/WIREIMAGE. BOSEMAN: ALBERTO E. RODRI

GUEZ/GETTY IMAGES FOR NAACP. KOTB: MICHAEL LOCCISANO/GETTY IMAGES FOR CMT.

Film and Television

This

Week

Last

Week

This

Week

Last

Week

This

Week

Last

Week

Three million Instagram

favorites (up 219 percent)

and 710,000 new followers

on the platform were the

rewards for the star of Black

Panther as the film opened

to rave reviews and huge

box office. He debuts one

spot behind Panther co-star

Lupita Nyong’o.

Like many of NBC’s person-

alities, Kotb is in South

Korea for the Winter

Olympics, posting photos

and videos from the

competition and her To d ay

broadcasts. It’s Kotb’s first

chart appearance, thanks

to 803,000 Instagram

favorites (up 66 percent).

His first Top Comedians

appearance since

September comes via a

794 percent leap in social

media conversation

metrics. He celebrated the

release of his new Netflix

stand-up show, Chris Rock:

Tambourine, his first special

in 10 years, on Feb. 14.

Watson guest-edited

the March issue of Vogue

Australia, using the

tagline, “Now is the time

for thoughtful fashion,”

to promote sustainability

in style. She saw a

118 percent bump in

Twitter likes and 9 million

Instagram favorites.

THR’S SOCIAL CLIMBERS

A ranking of the week ’s top actors, comedians

and personalities based on social media engagement

across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and more

Source: The week’s most active and talked-about entertainers on leading social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Twitter

and YouTube for the week ending date Feb. 20. Rankings are based on a formula blending weekly additions of fans as well as cumulative weekly

reactions and conversations, as tracked by MVP Index.

Data Compiled By

13 ↓ I 6 IRyan Reynolds

14 ↑ I- INoah Schnapp

15 ↑ I- IRobert Downey Jr.

16 ↓ I 8 IPriyanka Chopra

17 ↓ I 12 IShay Mitchell

18 ↑ I 24 IGaten Matarazzo

19 ↑ I- IIan Somerhalder

20 ↓ I 10 ITom Holland

21 ↑ I- ILily Collins

22 ↓ I 14 IChris Hemsworth

23 ↑ I- IBella Thorne

24 ↑ I- IHugh Jackman

25 ↓ I 7 IDeepika Padukone

8 ↑ I 9 IDove Cameron

9 ↑ I- IMichael B. Jordan

10 ↑ I 19 IBlake Lively

11 ↑ I- ILupita Nyong’o

12 ↑ I- IChadwick Boseman

7 ↓ I 5 ITommy Chong

8 ←→ I 8 IMarlon Wayans

9 ↑ I- ITiffany Haddish

10 ←→ I 10 IColleen Ballinger

Actors Comedians

TV Personalities

1 ↑ I 16 IMillie Bobby Brown

2 ↓ I 1 IWill Smith

3 ↓ I 2 IKevin Hart

4 ↑ I 5 IZendaya

5 ↓ I 4 IDwayne Johnson

6 ↓ I 3 IFinn Wolfhard

7 ↑ I- IEmma Watson

1 ←→ I 1 IKevin Hart

2 ↑ I 7 IAmy Schumer

3 ↓ I 2 ID.L. Hughley

4 ←→ I 4 ILeslie Jones

5 ↓ I 3 IJoe Rogan

6 ↑ I- IChris Rock

4 ↓ I 2 ITyra Banks

5 ↑ I 7 ICharlamagne Tha God

6 ↓ I 3 IJake Tapper

7 ↑ I 9 IChris Hayes

8 ↑ I- IBill Maher

9 ↓ I 5 IGordon Ramsay

10 ↑ I- IHoda Kotb

1 ←→ I 1 IJoanna Gaines

2 ↑ I 6 IChelsea Handler

3 ↑ I 10 IJimmy Kimmel

Despite having nearly 30 years to study the 1989 film,
Paramount Network’s TV take on Heathers is a one-note
disappointment, indulging in superficial detours from
the original and adding little scathing insight of its own.
Only the last of five episodes sent to critics exhibited a dis-
tinct perspective — and frankly, that’s too long to wait.
Creator Jason Micallef starts with a semi-interesting
premise inversion: Instead of the preppy, pretty kids rul-
ing Westerburg High, the all-powerful Heathers clique is
a gang of outsiders led by body-positive bad girl Heather
Chandler (Melanie Field), flanked by gender-queer ginger
Heather Duke (Brendan Scannell) and biracial lesbian
Heather McNamara (Jasmine Mathews). Rebelling against
them are conventionally attractive Veronica (Grace Victoria
Cox) and new kid J.D. (James Scully), who looks like the
male lead of every CW drama. Before long, Westerburg is
experiencing a rash of teenage “suicides.”
Having the high school ruled by students who, in a dif-
ferent era, might have been marginalized is a dark ly
provocative twist; here, the disenfranchised aren’t victims
but have become bullies themselves, wielding identity
politics and political correctness as their weapons. And
the show’s focus on the vacuity of a generation living on
social media and pressured to build a brand before they’ve
even built an identity is a worthwhile one.
The problem is that Heathers lacks the wit writer
Daniel Waters brought to the movie, instead relying on
mini-doses of salaciousness punctuated by easy-laugh
profanities like “clit” or “queef.” The fact that early epi-
sodes are peppered with dialogue lifted from the film only
draws attention to how shoddy most of the new lines are.
Interestingly, these Heathers are at their most compelling
in scenes that show their vulnerabilities, not their outre
public personae.
Scully’s J.D. is ultra-bland, and he and Cox have no chem-
istry. The 10-episode series’ best quips have been given to
some of the adult characters, like
J.D.’s stripper mom, Jade (a superb,
witheringly deadpan Selma Blair).
Meanwhile, Shannen Doherty
makes a cameo that does little
other than to give viewers another
reason to compare the show to the
vastly superior film.

Heathers

Paramount TV’s series version of the teen
classic has a smart twist but is sunk by weak
writing and uneven acting By Daniel J. Fienberg

AIRDATE 10 p.m.

Wednesday, March 7

(Paramount Network)

CAST Grace Victoria Cox,

Melanie Field, James

Scully, Brendan Scannell,

Jasmine Mathews

CREATOR Jason Micallef

From left:

Cox, Field,

Scannell and

Mathews

engage in

high school

warfare.