JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

CinemaClown Bringing Peter Jackson to mainstream prominence and presenting Kate Winslet & Melanie Lynskey in their screen debut, Heavenly Creatures combines the elements of romance, fantasy & coming-of-age story into one psychologically dark yet tragic drama to bring a notorious real-life crime to cinematic life.Set in the 1950s in New Zealand, Heavenly Creatures tells the story of two young girls who bond over their mutual interests for fantasy & literature and become very close over time. However, when their parents deem their relationship unhealthy and separate them, the two conspire to take matters into their own hands.Co-written & directed by Peter Jackson (best known for The Lord of the Rings), the film focuses on the friendship between the two teenage girls rather than the crime & its aftermath and establishes their affection for each other as pure & beautiful, often going as far as to illustrate the fantasy world that they had created for themselves.The story is fun & lighthearted at first, depicting their developing friendship as rich & compelling and slowly delves into a sinister territory as plot progresses before finally culminating with an ending that's as tragic & soul-shattering as it's haunting. Treated in a way that evokes sympathy for both, it's a story about a beautiful friendship that went horribly wrong.The visual effects for fantasy segments that Jackson manages to accomplish with the limited budget is no doubt impressive while the swift zooms & fluid movements of the camera provide the film an energetic flow. Editing makes sure all events are captured from the girls' perspectives and stays by their side at all times. And music makes its presence felt only when necessary.But the real highlight of Heavenly Creatures is the riveting performances from the leading ladies as both Kate Winslet & Melanie Lynskey leave a lasting impression in their given roles and their on-screen chemistry is just as sparkling. Between the two, Lynskey delivers a better input but Winslet has a charm & flamboyance that makes her character instantly appealing. The supporting cast ably play their part but they're no match to what these new arrivals pull off together.On an overall scale, Heavenly Creatures offers a thoroughly captivating account of a real-life tragedy by handling its subject matter with required care & attention, and also covers the themes of love, friendship, imagination, obsession & homosexuality with sincerity. The final moments in particular are difficult & heartbreaking to watch but it also hits the story home. Establishing Peter Jackson as a serious talent with promises of greater things to come and introducing the world to one of the most beautiful, admirable & incredibly gifted actresses of our time, Heavenly Creatures is absolutely worth your time & money.

Red-125 Heavenly Creatures (1994) is a New Zealand film co-written and directed by Peter Jackson.The film stars Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker, and Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme. In 1954, in what was famous as the Parker-Hulme murder, the two teenage friends brutally murdered Parker's mother. The case would have been a sensation at any time and in any place, but in 1950's New Zealand, it was beyond belief.The movie starts with the two girls, with blood all over them, running and screaming up to an ice cream stand in a park. As we learn, they are Parker and Hulme. They have just bludgeoned Parker's mother with a brick. In that sense, the rest of the movie is a flashback. It begins with the murder and ends with the murder. Apparently, nobody knows to this day why the two girls acted the way they did.The film is essentially a docudrama. The movie follows the facts that are known about the case. Parker kept a diary, which, of course, the police found when they investigated. They were then able to clearly identify the girls as the murderers, but they also obtained information about the elaborate, detailed fantasy world the young women had developed.Both women--in real life--have said that they weren't lesbians. However, their behavior was interpreted to mean that they were lesbians. At the time, lesbianism was officially considered a serious mental disorder. However, in the film, a doctor says that although they are acting like lesbians, "they'll grow out of it."Winslet is the more elegant and beautiful of the girls, so we look at her first. Of course, we now know that three years later she is going to star in Titanic. I believe that Lynskey is an equally good actor. She has achieved success as a character actor. However, she didn't star in Titanic, and she didn't win an Oscar or receive a CBE. That's show business.It was hard to enjoy this film because it was obvious from the beginning that something horrible was going to happen, and, if you knew the case, you knew what that something was. The movie was brilliantly photographed and directed, the supporting roles were well cast and well acted, and every film buff wants to see the movie in which Kate Winslet began her career.In that sense, it's a must-see movie. I recommend this film, but with the caveat that you won't walk away whistling the theme song. It's tough to watch. The girls are so out of control, and their motivation is so bizarre, that you'll end up wondering how it could really have happened.We saw this film projected from an original 35mm nitrate print at the excellent Dryden Theatre of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. It's wonderful to see movies in this way, but the film will work almost as well on the small screen. The movie was shown as part of ImageOut, the outstanding Rochester LGBT Film Festival.

Hannah Ewen (sourpatchbab) Heavenly Creatures has everything you could ask for in a film: intense female friendship turned romantic, estrangement from others leading to unhealthy & fantastical escapes, loving parental figures, planned murder. With an added personality disorder, child-aged character, theme of societal satire, or suicide; this film would have topped my charts.First exposure was as always in form of The Simpsons; one of the few good modern episodes: Lisa The Drama Queen, where Lisa befriends a girl and together they create a fantasy world in order to escape everyday life. Another film to add to the ~dangerously intense relationships~ list.

The_Film_Cricket Forgive my ignorance but when I saw 'Heavenly Creatures' I had no idea that it was based on a true account. I guess that says something for the movie, which is pretty much able stand on it's own.The story (as I researched later) is based on a murder that took place in New Zealand in 1952 as Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme bashed in the head of Pauline's mother after the threat of being separated became imminent.What leads these girls to such a brutal act is the focus of Peter Jackson's stunning film about two personalities that connect in a world that isn't comfortable with their closeness. Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) is frumpy, sour and hides behind her black unruly hair and permanent scowl. She meets Juliette (Kate Winslet) and is captivated by this pretty, outgoing girl who giggles hysterically, she smiles brightly and seems to understand her isolation. Both lead boring, emotionally confused lives going to Christchurch school but eventually find in each other a comfortable escape.The girls have everything in common not the least of which is a crush on Mario Lanza. They create for themselves a Camelot-like world, a world of kings and knights and romantic adventures. The special effects make this imaginary world a captivating place from which they escape the staleness of their lives. It allows Jackson to take us into this world to show us that this is a relationship built on mutual attraction of soulmates. To an outsider this could be misconstrued as lesbianism and thus begins the problem.Adults begin to suspect that the two are spending far too much time together, that their relationship has become 'unhealthy'. This is a time and place in which homosexuality is a hushed word spoken in a whisper. The suggestion is made that separating them would be the best thing.Pauline and Juliette are so intoxicated by one another that the thought of being separated would be devastating. Then, they begin to plan and carry out the murder. The irony, we guess, is that the girls were less of a threat before the adults began to intervene.What would be so addictive about their world that they would be willing to kill for it? Even Hulme doesn't really know. Around the time of the release of this film it was found that Hulme was living and writing novels under the name Anne Perry. In interviews she seems as baffled as we are.'Heavenly Creatures' is the kind of movie the people discuss in the same vein that they discuss the Columbine tragedy. What kind of maladjustments and emotional crippling leads people to commit murder? What was it, in the bond Pauline and Juliette that was worth protecting? The movie thinks it knows but leaves enough open for us to interpret.