HEAVENLY CREATURES
A film review by Eric Grossman
Copyright 1994 LOS ANGELES INDEPENDENT 1994
If it were not true, HEAVENLY CREATURES would probably be considered too unbelievable to be a movie. Unfortunately, the story is true. In New Zealand during the year 1952, two bright, imaginative and resentful fourteen year-old girls, Pauline and Juliet, became so obsessed with each other they resorted to murder to stay together.
New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson skillfully directs this picture giving us the right balance of surrealism and reality that allows us to both sympathize with the girls and realize how insane they are becoming. The story centers around the intelligent but withdrawn Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey). When Pauline meets the new kid in school, Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), a worldly, upper-class young woman who does not mind correcting her French teacher's grammar, the two quickly find that they are soul mates.
The girls become inseparable, sharing their love for movie stars, famous singers and for each other. As their bond increases, so do their flights of fantasy, including a surreal, imaginary world called Borovnia. Borovnia is a medieval kingdom that the girls use to escape Pauline's mother, Honora, who tries desperately to bring Pauline back to reality. Juliet's father, more concerned about his daughter's apparent lesbianism than her bouts with tuberculosis, also tries to separate the two. The idea of separation is too much for the girls to bear and that is what leads to the film's tragic ending.
Lynskey and Winslet give powerful performances as does Sarah Perise who plays Honora. The film has an "independent" look but it is most effective. Jackson and cinematographer Alun Bollinger make great use of wide-angle lenses, warm lighting and moving camera to keep a sense of kinetic surrealism. The special effects used to create the world of Borovnia are superb. One of my favorite effects was the life-size, clay-people who would dance and sing around the Borovnian castle. We see Pauline's psychosis deepen as she begins to imagine these clay-people outside of Borovnia. There is even a scene where she imagines one of them slaying the psychiatrist her parents take her to see.
As strange as this all seems, nothing compares to the story's coda. Popular British crime-novelist, Anne Perry, recently revealed that she was in fact Juliet Hulme. After watching the film, this reality seems incredibly perverse and ironic. If any Anne Perry fans were wondering why their favorite author could write murder so well, it is because she herself has done it in very, cold blood.
HEAVENLY CREATURES is a compelling story skillfully told. Just one word of advice. Don't see it if you're depressed or do not wish to become depressed. This is a sad, tragic, painful story but it is another potent illustration of just how dangerous obsession can be.
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