For those who wondered how the director of Bad Taste and Brain Dead got to direct The Lord of the Rings, this 1994 film from director Peter Jackson supplies the answer. In 1954 two teenage girls brutally murdered one of their mothers in what must be the most sensational murder in New Zealand history. Heavenly Creatures tells the strange story of these two girls and their unique relationship. If you think this is just a reality-based splatter flick, then you are going to be much more than surprised and impressed by what Jackson has accomplished.
Pauline Rieper (Melanie Lynskey) is a simple and rather dull young girl who is totally dazzled when Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) enters her life. Juliet is impressed as well, because Pauline has a scar on her leg from an operation. Juliet declares that, "All the best people have had chest and bone disease! It's all frightfully romantic!" Eventually both the romance and the frightfulness of it all reaches a tragic conclusion. In their all-consuming friendship, Juliet and Pauline create a "Fourth World," better than heaven (because it has no Christians), inhabited by the clay figures they have fashioned to represents their friends, and where the music of Mario Lanza, the greatest tenor on earth, is always in the air.
Jackson brings this fantasy world alive, which allows him to explore the pivotal theme of juxtaposition throughout the film. This comes into play most notably at the beginning and ending of Heavenly Creatures. Jackson begins with a 1950s newsreel about Christchurch, New Zealand, which is interrupted by the appearance of the two screaming and bloodied girls, thereby symbolizing the way this sensational case shocked the nation. Even more effective is the film's conclusion, where the murder is intercut with what the girls think will happen if they do not find this way of saving themselves.
With any film based on historical events there are omissions, alterations, substitutions, and the like, and Heavenly Creatures is no exception. On the plus side of the ledger, Jackson attempted an almost morbid verisimilitude. Almost all of the locations used for filming were the real locations where events occurred, including the tea shop where Honora Parker ate her last meal, which was torn down a few days after the shooting ended. However, the cast and crew found the actual murder scene uncomfortable and moved further down the path. All of the journal voice-overs come directly from Pauline's diary, as do the characters in the girls' make-believe world. However, since the two filled up 15 notebooks and hundreds of letters devoted to their fantasies, the movie actually underplays these elements.
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Article comments
1 - Virginia Dare
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Does the DVD offer any features?
2 - Bliffle
Heavenly Creatures is an excellent movie: well worth adding to your Netflix queue (as I just did, in slot 198). I first saw it about when it came out. It's an unusual, idiosyncratic and engrossing film.
Another good film from that era (1990) and that locale (NZ) is "Angel At My Table", by Campion, which is a biography of Janet Frane, a truly excellent poet from NZ who endured many struggles with her mental problems and nevertheless had many adventures.
Both movies have such a refreshingly new and yet simple approach to characters, as opposed to the highly developed cliches of most movies, that they can make you stop in your tracks with wonder. As if they were made by aliens from another planet. Not many movies are that good.
I remember seeing "Angel..." on TV one evening after returning home from viewing a famous and celebrated film (I cannot remember what) and being utterly floored by the superiority of this unknown little masterpiece.
3 - Casey Lunkley
Hey Virginia.
All the DVD offers is the trailer, subtitles, the standard stuff.
I've been hearing about an uncut version DVD also with no features, but 10 minutes extra of the movie.
4 - Christopher Soden
Really enjoyed your piece. I've always regarded Heavenly Creatures as something of a sleeper, very few people seem to be acquainted with it, either from its belonging to Jackson's or Winslett's oeuvre. The surreal use of claymation was a brilliant stroke of film-making in my book as it helped to draw us into the girl's mindset. Reading your critique reminded me of the 2 French sisters who worked as housekeepers in the same home. They too, murdered because they were afraid of being separated and lived in their own "netherworld." It was a famous case and has been dramatized in numerous ways, both film and theatre. If you've never seen BADLANDS (by Terence Malick) it also attempts to enter the minds of killers without judgement (though by all accounts Charles Starkweather was a true sociopath). BADLANDS is visually stunning and great cinema. Thanks for the piece on HEAVENLY CREATURES!
Cheers,
Christopher
5 - -E
Congrats, this article was picked for one of this week's Ed Picks. Keep up the good work.
6 - Howard Dratch
By coincidence I saw Heavenly Creatures again just this week on Mexican TV. It had been a long time since I first saw it and had forgotten what a fine film could be made from such a morbid story.
Your review was insightful and added some information left out of the film and the written epilogues of the girls' futures. Well done!