In 1950s New Zealand, two girls, connected by a special and indescribable bond, find that the only way to stay together may be murder. Based on a true story.
Subgenres: real-life, magic
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet
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This is truly a special and unique work, showing the height of director Peter Jackson's sensitivity while allowing him to use the directing creativity he so easily weilds. Heavenly Creatures is a film so attentive and complex that it is able to seamlessly juxtapose fantasy and reality, giving each its own identity while also using each to enrich the other. The movie's few moments of graphic violence are perfectly balanced by both scenes of raw emotional truth and ocassional sequences of wild, wonderfully escapist fantasy--a wonderland the likes of which I've never before witnessed. Most of all, however, Heavenly Creatures is so remarkable in the way it treats its characters' relationships, especially the increasingly obsessive bond between Pauline and Juliet. The film develops the relationship between the girls so gradually and carefully that be the end, their connection to each other has passed beyond normal friendship, beyond family, beyond the mere sexuality some people may see it as being. Instead, their relationship has progressed to such a point as to defy explanation--it is powerful and all-encompassing . . . and that a mere film can even come close to expressing that is astounding. (Nov 30, 1999) | ||||||
Based on a true story.
Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme both changed their names after they went through the events dramatized in Heavenly Creatures. Parker became Hilary Nathan, and has lived in an English village since the '60s, where she, as of three years ago, ran a children's riding school. Hulme eventually became a successful novelist under the name Anne Perry.
