Heavenly Creatures (1994): *****

Heavenly Creatures depicts the friendship between Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), a pair of teenage schoolgirls in Christchurch, New Zealand, as recorded in Pauline’s diaries. Pauline is from a working-class family, relying on lodgers to generate extra income for the house. In contrast Juliet’s family is rich and originally from England, her parents often travelling abroad to work. Pauline and Juliet bond over a shared love of the arts, a vivid imagination and their sickly childhoods. As their relation intensifies and their parents become more concerned, Juliet and Pauline ultimately decide to commit murder in order to remain together forever. 

Heavenly Creatures is tragic in its portrayal of Pauline and Juliet. Both girls are isolated from their peers, due to their love for fantasy adventures and their disapproval of authority figures. However, it is not entirely unwarranted as Pauline’s narration regularly states they are superior in genius to everyone else. Director Peter Jackson employs the tone of an epic romance to his film with Alun Bollinger’s cinematography, consisting of long aerial shots of the rolling hills, Steadicam revolving around Juliet and Pauline dancing together, and hand-held camera following the pair as they crash through the woods. Jackson stages some wonderfully imaginative sequences; one example involves the girls narrating a scene with a sandcastle. The camera charges at the sandcastle, knocking down the door and continuing up the stairs as the girls watch through the windows. As the parents begin to separate them, Juliet and Pauline despair at their situation and double down on their efforts to speak to each other via letters. Heavenly Creatures never fully attempts to explain their mental state; when Pauline visits the doctor, he diagnoses her as homosexual (considered a mental illness until the 1970s) and attributes all of her behaviour to that ‘diagnosis’. Separation anxiety from her childhood is subtly suggested to be the driving force in Juliet’s behaviour, whilst Pauline appears to be resentful of her poor lifestyle and believes her mother Honora (Sarah Peirse) is solely to blame for her woes.

However, Heavenly Creatures also explores the more disturbing aspects to the Parker-Hulme case. The opening scenes of the film make it clear that the end will be bloody. The distortion between reality and fantasy is playfully at first, as Pauline and Juliet run through their imaginary kingdom of Borovnia. Borovnia is bright and colourful, populated by unicorns, giant butterflies, the clay-people the pair have fashioned and their favourite artists like Mario Lanza. As Juliet and Pauline become more engrossed in their imaginary world, they begin to refer to each other by their fictional names. When Juliet or Pauline comes across someone they dislike, they imagine their clay subjects slaughtering them. The clay subjects begin to materialise in increasing bizarre ways as the film progresses. Pauline also begins to fantasize that Juliet’s parents are her own parents, smiling encouragingly at Juliet and Pauline as they kiss. The scene of ‘the happy event’, where Juliet and Pauline lead their victim away into the woods to murder, is painfully tense as the camera cuts to the clock as the hands approach the victim’s timed death. 

Both Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey give terrific and intense performances as Juliet and Pauline respectively. Winslet’s Juliet is excitable – too excitable and energetic for many people’s tastes. Winslet is all flushed cheeks and shiny eyes when she is playing with Pauline, before turning cold and dismissive towards her teachers. In contrast Lynskey’s Pauline is sullen, glaring under her wild mop of brown hair. Lynskey captures Pauline’s fascination and admiration towards Juliet and her lifestyle. Both Winslet and Lynskey portray the border-line hysteria the girls go through when they learn they are to be separated with perfection.

Heavenly Creatures is a stunning exploration of this intense relationship – shot beautifully and imaginatively – with two striking performances by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey.