The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Heavenly Creatures is a story about the notorious duo Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme who, in their teenage years, killed Honora Parker, Pauline's mother, in cold blood. Parker's murder is one famous case of 1950s which later inspires many plays, books and also, movies. Pauline and Juliet like nothing more than each other's company. They came close as they both had experience of suffering from some kind of severe illness as children. During their friendship, the girls used to create imaginative worlds with kings and queens and knights and loved to dream about that instead of focusing on reality. In reality, their parents were getting suspicious of their friendship and hence, decided that the girls should be separated as their friendship is poisonous. All this and a lot happened after which the girls decided that killing Pauline's mother and running away is the only option left for them. Sure, you would say that their attachment was unhealthy. It is convenient to say that it wasn't love that brought them together but pure madness. Both of the girls lived in a fantasy world created by them in their head to escape the reality that they may not stay together forever.But this movie is not about that. Peter Jackson directed Heavenly Creatures is a portrayal of how innocent between two teenagers can wreak havoc. They movie shows us how close they were, almost inseparable. They lived as if there is no one else in the world. But, when you feel this much connected with someone, it is almost impossible to imagine how one will live if they get away somehow. You start feeling that everyone is your enemy as they are trying to take that one thing away which you cannot part with. Even if those who are trying to do this are your own parents. Step by step, the whole scenario is explained beautifully, right up to the murder. The movie gave a successful entry to Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet into the world of Hollywood. Both of them played the troubled teenagers quite efficiently. Winslet brought the craziness to her character and Lynskey brought the innocence. The screenplay is something to look forward to. The audience is taken on a ride which swings between the reality and the fantasy world. In the end, the movie will make you feel sorry for both the girls, even after knowing what they did. I think this movie is remarkable and gives everyone something to think about.

Peter Jackson known for low budget gory splat movies from New Zealand makes his first steps in serious film making in this murder drama based on a true incident.The film opens with the aftermath of the slaying as two teenage girls emerge hysterical from the woods in Christchurch.The film is about two schoolgirls, Mario Lanza, Orson Welles and living in early 1950s New Zealand which might had been decades behind the 1950s where rock n roll was to emerge in America.Awkward, morose, gawky schoolgirl Pauline (Melanie Lynsky) meets a new arrival from England, Juliet (Kate Winslet) who is confident, clever and brings Pauline out of her shell. Both bond closely with their love of opera and begin to live in a fantasy land which also allows Jackson to keep his horror fans satisfied with special effects scenes.The friendship between Juliet and Pauline soon becomes unhealthy as they feel superior and reality and fantasy collides. Pauline is resentful of her hokey, backwards family, especially her mother. Not helped by them not understanding her burgeoning sexuality, especially when a older boarder takes advantage of her and they blame the daughter.Juliet is ignored by her self centred parents who on the verge of splitting up and Juliet might end up going to South Africa. As the girls are forcibly kept apart they hatch a violent plan which ends up in disaster and tragedy.This is really a small scale drama from Peter Jackson, a world away from his recent overblown, enormous budget epics with even lengthier directors cuts.Here the acting from Winslet and Lynsky does the talking. Jackson brings the New Zealand of the 1950s to live, a world that is very insular. However the film is an efficient drama, nicely acted, a gory ending but not too far away from a well made television drama with some good special effects.

Kate Winslet is Juliet Hulme, a bright eyed schoolgirl with golden locks, a radiant smile, and a British accent that makes her stunningly exotic, or at least to the strictly Catholic New Zealand school. Melanie Lynskey is Pauline Parker, whose hair is almost as dark as her glare, and whom no doubt wishes she could exchange her thick New Zealand accent for something a bit striking and otherworldly. These are two girls who would not normally be drawn to each other, but because of medical conditions, find themselves a close friendship. Jackson indicates the blossoming of this by letting the debut actresses act, and be teenage girls; after the first conversation, Paul hurries home, dodging her mother's question to put on a new record - Mario Lanza, the world's greatest tenor, and her blissful reaction is all we need to know. They are both terrific performances and scream children instead of actresses reading lines in each little symptom of girls lost in their own worlds; the mocking tones in which Juliet mimics a 'friend' of her mother's, the way Paul drops her head into her hands whenever she is embarrassed by her father singing into a fish or her mother welcoming a boarder, how they skip together hand in hand and giggle and laugh endlessly in their own imagination. The visual effects, which are noticeably dated, seem to fit quite well with the context. When they first visualise the Fourth World, the mundane New Zealand is physically wiped away in swathes for the idyllic gardens and unicorns and giant butterflies, and a golden glow bathes their playtime. It does not look fluid or smooth, but transforms itself in the same way in which a child's mind unlocks little segments of their daydreams. The soundtrack tinkles along, Mario Lanza serenades, and the camera weaves and swoops its way through the air like the outstretched arms that they have exchanged for aeroplane wings, and swivels around in excitement. A show-tune could easily be dropped in here, and the whole scene could insert itself into Mary Poppins without a touch of difference. When they build a sandcastle, they lovingly craft intricate details and a storyline to match, and the camera makes itself tiny and matches each gallop of the sound design as it tours the majestic building, matching their vivid imagination. Only later, as the Fourth World leaks into the real, does the sound become more menacing; as irritations are beheaded and gutted for upsetting the creator. Aside from those bursts of imaginative violence (which all of us have had once in a while, even as adults - but this films takes it further), Jackson subtly imbues the real world with a haunting, suffocating quality, as if the girl's dreamland has begun to affect how they see reality, and how little they want to return to it. When a pastor offers up a pamphlet emblazoned with Jesus, there is a loud whoosh, dramatising how horrifying this confrontation must be, before a clay figure drags him away for execution. An extreme closeup likewise does the same to evil word the doctor theorises, a taboo back in the 50s. But I think it is much more than just physical love that they share; it is something much stronger. When Paul goes in search of the latter, the camera hovers over a backyard full of junk, and she is presented, climbed the railing, as some sort of prince to a Rapunzel, or a Romeo to a Juliet, in search of that romance in vain. That search leads her back to Juliet, who descends the staircase while the score crescendos in a gown and manner gracefully reminiscent of Cinderella, and Paul's face is awash with a sensual red glow. Harsh green light seems to constantly leak in through the windows, creating a sickly aura that seems to chase the girls and wind down the time they have together. When they are in separate beds, Selkirk hovers over the back of a nurse and smoothly connects the pair through their letters, and then the red and blue glows merge into each other so gorgeously, and they spend the night. All the while, Paul's diary voice-over narrates, and gives us insight into this relationship. It covers every thing from the childhood trivialities to the passionate moments, and is spoken with such a haughty distaste for the real and a wondrous longing for the imaginary. It almost seems normal and consequential when those shocking words are finally dropped: remove mother. This is the film's crowning achievement: to immerse us into Paul and Juliet's world, to make it so seductive, to make themselves so unconditionally necessary to each other, and then to slip in something so trivial, like murder. And it almost manages to convince us it is justified.

I have to say this movie was dark as the dark ages and the strangest i have ever came across.Although I have to say it was sad that two girls had such lonely lives even without each other. All they thought about was to get into the other world and be happy. They are pretty much loners, that was why it triggered them to fantasy and of course, planning to kill Pauline's mother just so the girls won't be separated again.I swear, this can be hard to watch! I mean, Pauline and Juliet were very intelligent ordinary girls but it really went downhill for them in the end. It is too bad that back in the 50's, they didn't mention what homosexuality truly is. They could've least looked into more but of course, stupid doctors or scientists as well as therapists weren't moving their backsides at all. Thank god nowadays, everything has changed now for the better!