Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures is an imaginative and vivid work of art, telling the true story of the obsessive friendship between two young girls which ended in their cold-blooded murder of the mother of one of them. Released in 1994, the film featured Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their first ever starring roles as Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, New Zealand teenagers who, in 1954, were convicted of first degree murder.
A True Story of Obsessive Love
The film grips your attention from the start as, blood-covered and screaming, two young girls run through a woods, a shocking scene which is interspersed with more romantic black and white footage of the two girls running and laughing, hand in hand, in happier times.
We then meet the girls, chubby misfit Pauline (Lynskey) who scowls and glowers her way through another day at her girls-only school, and new girl Juliet (Winslet), beautiful, bold and outspoken, but nonetheless insecure about her parent’s love. The two girls bond over shared maladies which keep them from gym class; Pauline suffered from a bone disease in the past and Juliet was separated from her parents for five years while she recovered from a lung ailment in a hospital in the Bahamas.
Despite their obvious differences (Pauline comes from a working class family and Juliet is much more worldly and upper class), the two girls discover that their shared sense of imagination can help them create a new world for themselves and the two of them become entranced by their own imaginings. Throughout the friendship, Pauline keeps a diary and it is the words of this diary that provide her voice-overs in the film.
As the girls become even more deeply involved in their imaginary world, the real one becomes an obsolete nuisance. When they are temporarily separated from one another when Juliet recovers from a bout of tuberculosis, the separation seems to make them even more enamoured with one another. The relationship takes on a physical aspect which worries their parents who try, without success, to keep them from one another.
When Juliet’s worst fear comes to pass and her parents announce they are divorcing and sending her to live with relatives in South Africa, Pauline is determined to come with her. She and Juliet devise all sorts of schemes to run away. Pauline’s mother, Honora, becomes the focus of her daughter's rage at never seeing Juliet again and she, calmly and coldly, plans to kill her so she can be with her friend. Juliet, reluctant at first, agrees to help. On a visit to a park, the two girls set upon Honora with a brick in a stocking, bludgeoning her to death.
The vicious act that was supposed to allow the girls to remain together only served to separate them forever. Both girls were tried for murder, escaping the death penalty because of their youth. They each served five years in prison and were released on condition that they never see each other again.
Heavenly Creatures – A Brilliant Piece of Filmmaking
Peter Jackson, who was in 1994 best known for low budget slash and gore films, approached Heavenly Creatures with an imaginative and artistic touch. Instead of focussing on the trials and convictions and even the murder itself, he delved deep into the intense relationship between Juliet and Pauline, allowing us a glimpse into their imaginary world with the use of brilliant special effects and startling dream sequences. The physical aspect of the girls’ relationship, which could have easily been exploitive and tawdry, was handled in a mature way. There are moments of dark humour throughout the film, adding a fresh aspect to what could be a very grim tale.
The acting in the film is superb. Young and fresh faced, Kate Winslet makes a thoroughly charming Juliet, charismatic, yet touchingly vulnerable when faced with the abandonment of her parents and friend. Melanie Lynskey’s Pauline conveys the emotions of anger and disgust, sadness and wonder with a simple scowl or glint in her eye. The girls’ relationship calls to mind the work of another Antipodeans director, Peter Weir, and his film Picnic on Hanging Rock, which also focussed on an intense friendship between awkward Sarah and golden girl Miranda in the hothouse environment of an exclusive girls’ school, which also ended in tragedy, albeit of a different sort.
Heavenly Creatures is one of those rare films that showcases the talents of people who you know you will be seeing again. Though not as well known as it deserves to be, it has gained a cult status among film-lovers who appreciate a good, well acted story, told with imagination and freshness.
Beth MacMillan - Beth MacMillan fulfilled her dream of living and traveling in Europe when she, her husband and their two dogs moved to Denmark in 2001 for ...
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