HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

When Heavenly Creatures was first released in the autumn of 1994, no one could have imagined that this small film from New Zealand would have such a huge positive effect on its key cast members. Not only that, its director and wife would also go on to achieve massive success—in large part because of this too.

Based on a true story about teenagers Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, whose intense relationship culminates with the pair murdering Pauline’s mother, Heavenly Creatures features Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in those respective roles.

British actress Winslet soon found global stardom following Ang Lee’s acclaimed Sense and Sensibility (1995) and James Cameron’s Academy Award-winning behemoth Titanic (1997), however, New Zealand-born Lynskey, while not achieving the same stratospheric heights, would still enjoy a solid career in such titles as The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) and Don’t Look Up (2021), while also appearing in the hugely popular sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003-2015) and the recent Yellowjackets.

Director Peter Jackson, of course, went on to become the fourth-highest-grossing filmmaker of all time following his uber-successful trilogy adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (2001-03), as well as The Hobbit (2012-14), and for also making his lifelong passion project—a remake of King Kong (2005)—which also turned out to be a reasonable hit. However, back in the 1980s, when Jackson first started making films, things were very different indeed…

Before filming Heavenly Creatures, Jackson was only known for making low-budget cult horror movies Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992), along with a black comedy musical featuring puppets called Meet the Feebles (1989), which is why when this came out, critics and cinemagoers were somewhat surprised by Jackson’s huge shift in style and tone. Not only was this a ‘true crime story’ film but it’s set in the conservative 1950s city of Christchurch, making it about as far removed from Jackson’s gore-soaked horror features as you could get.

And while it’s true that the story’s core themes of adolescence, obsession, and muddled sexuality—resulting in a horrific crime—are no doubt serious, how Jackson and his screenwriting partner Fran Walsh tackle these sensitive subjects is nothing short of creative genius: one which makes for a viewing experience that constantly veers from fantasy to moments of comedy, romance, then to drama and suspense; effortlessly putting the viewer right into the teenagers’ universe.

Talking of comedy, the film starts with a subtly funny excerpt from a genuine promotional travelogue, made for the Christchurch City Council; the humour arising from its very old-fashioned posh British accent that’s used for its narration. Picture-perfect shots of the city’s centre, parks and river, with its residents seen walking happily by, are punctuated with a melodramatic score that was so typically used throughout that post-war era. Immediately, though, this nostalgia-heavy opening credits montage is interrupted with great dramatic effect when it cuts to a horrific shot of two screaming girls running through a park covered in blood. They run up to a woman shouting: “It’s mummy, she’s terribly hurt, please help us,” this sharp contrast in tone perfectly lays out a sense of unease and unpredictability for what’s to come next…

The real beginning of this story takes place in 1952 at Christchurch Girls High School when British teenager Juliet Hulme—just arrived from England—is placed in the same class as the socially awkward Pauline Parker. Despite the pair’s massively different backgrounds: Hulme’s father was a top physicist who became the rector at the University of Canterbury, while Parker’s was a fish wholesaler, the two girls quickly bond over their shared history of childhood physical ailments (Hulme had tuberculosis, Parker suffered from a bone marrow infection), love of art, fantasy writing, and most of all, their heartthrob American tenor and actor, Mario Lanza.

A scene early on showing the two running out of the cinema after watching one of his films, both laughing and euphoric over what they’ve just seen—with the camera following them as they speed through the city centre—nicely captures their pure joy and apparent fast-growing friendship. Parker immediately gets home and races into the living room and starts to play one of Lanza’s records. Her father who’s amused at this, ridicules her by picking up a fish from the kitchen and pretends that the singing is coming from the fish’s mouth. While this is quite funny, it’s immediately obvious that her family don’t share the same fondness for the tenor’s music, which is one of the reasons why Pauline starts to feel alienated. Soon enough she also starts arguing with her mother Honora (Sarah Peirse) which leads to her spending more time at Juliet’s house.

Along with their aforementioned shared passions, the girls also love making plasticine figurines and writing, and so they start creating a new fantasy spiritual setting, Borovnia—the Fourth World—one which they conjure up as a sort of alternative heaven filled with their own saints without any basis in Christianity; instead, this new world would be filled with a celebration of music, art and nature. Such is the girls’ level of imagination that in one scene where Parker explains Borovnia to John, a lodger at the Parkers, she describes a family tree that had been worked out for many generations and that this universe was populated with both nobles and commoners.

This fantasy ‘Fourth World’ is stunningly brought to life thanks to Peter Jackson’s first use of CGI with his own effects team, Weta Workshop. Speaking about the origins of Weta in an interview, Jackson said that they didn’t have to go with VFX for this story, but after seeing Jurassic Park (1993) just before production began he soon realised that this new digital era couldn’t be ignored, and as he always enjoyed producing his own practical effects the decision to create Weta was made.

Weta’s humble beginnings of just one ‘very expensive computer’ for Heavenly Creatures soon grew exponentially; it now utilises thousands and has become Industrial Light & Magic’s main VFX rival, being employed across all the Tolkien and Avatar films, as well as recent productions like The Creator (2023) and Alien: Romulus (2024).

Aside from the effective VFX on display here, the cinematography by New Zealand’s own Alun Robert Bollinger can’t be ignored either. From frame one, his use of light and colour conveys an almost dream-like quality—-and yet, as the film nears its dark conclusion, the brightness and vivid hues are subtly replaced with more muted tones.

The girls’ Fourth World, which first began as a bit of fun, starts to become a place where they both go at times of great stress and/or trauma. This first manifests when Juliet falls ill again with tuberculosis and is bedridden at a sanitarium. The forced separation leads to the pair writing constantly to each other as their fantasy names, Charles and Deborah (pronounced deh-BORE-ah), and it’s here where we see the pair interacting with the different imaginary plasticine figures. This intensifies when Juliet is distraught at the news that her parents are going on a trip for several months while she recovers at the clinic.

Borovnia may be their utopia but it’s far from peaceful; at one point a bored and frustrated Juliet imagines her therapist being forcibly taken away to be executed by being beheaded; the macabre scene is made even more surreal when Weta’s digital wizardry shows the plasticine figures—now as big as real people—in full force and moving in quite lifelike fashion.

Meanwhile, Pauline’s relationship with her parents goes from bad to worse when her father catches the lodger in bed with Pauline. He’s thrown out of the house immediately, but the two still stay in contact with each other and eventually sleep together. It’s during the sex scene that we see Pauline’s somewhat stimulated mind take her to Borovnia—and it’s clear now that reality and the girls’ fantasy world are becoming more blurred.

During certain scenes in the film, one starts to get the impression the girls’ friendship is becoming something more; there are a few shots of the pair embracing and kissing, though Jackson and Walsh keep this element of the story ambiguous—though what is 100% clear is that the pair’s relationship is very intense. Juliet’s father starts to become wary of the pair’s behaviour and speaks to Pauline’s parents who subsequently take her to see a doctor. Following an appointment, the doctor thinks Pauline may be a homosexual and gives this as a reason for her weight loss and growing anger towards her mother.

While all this drama plays on, Juliet’s parents announce that they are getting divorced, following the revelation that Mrs Hulme has been having an affair. This is traumatic enough for the teenager, but things get even worse when the father says he is moving back to England and decides to leave Juliet in the care of her aunt in South Africa.

Things now spiral out of control fast, and before long, Pauline’s already negative feelings towards her mother are quickly replaced with murderous thoughts when she realises that her plans to obtain a passport—necessary for the pair’s foolish idea of running away to Hollywood—are doomed because she needs parental consent.

Up to this point, the smart screenplay by Walsh and Jackson has moved the story along at an almost breakneck pace. Its narrative structure involving the CGI ‘Fourth World’, camerawork that never sits still, sharp editing by Jamie Selkirk, and continual narration from Lynskey—taken from Pauline’s real diary entries—all make for near breathless viewing. However, as soon as the film enters its final act, speed is replaced with suspense as you see the pair devise their evil plot, and the inevitability of the murder that took place on 22 June 1954 creeps ever closer.

Despite the horrific nature of the killing, full credit has to be given to the filmmakers for their matter-of-fact portrayal of the scene. Nothing is gratuitous, but at the same time, you do witness the violence in all its shocking brutality while the film’s opening comes screeching back full circle as you now see why the two girls are covered in blood. It’s here where the tragic story ends and the closing credits reveal some interesting facts: due to their young age, the pair avoided the death sentence but were jailed for five years on the condition that they never see each other again. Also, during the trial, it transpired that Pauline’s parents were never actually married.

The film, while not a commercial success (it just about broke even on its $5M budget), was a critical sensation and was nominated for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ at the Academy Awards. It also picked up a raft of glowing reviews: Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a B+, stating “This ripe hallucination of a movie has been photographed in sun-drenched candy colour that lends it the surreal clarity of a dream,” while The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it a “disturbing and sublime” masterpiece. It also featured on many prestigious Top 10 lists for that year.

Today, the only slight negative criticism I can think of is that some of the CGI effects haven’t aged well; a few of the scenic backgrounds and plasticine figures can, at times, appear too rough around the edges, but this never distracts or lessens your enjoyment of the film—which has to be attributed to its two leading actors who, along with the great script and direction, do much of the heavy lifting in making this film work so well.

Winslet was only 18 at the time of production, and this was her first film role—something you still can’t quite believe when seeing how convincing her performance is as the precocious upper-class Juliet. Lynskey was just 16, this was also her film debut, and from the get-go her screen presence is undeniable. In what must have been a difficult part to play, her acting as the frumpy and troubled teen Pauline is as good as any veteran performer twice her age. As effective as Winslet is, Lynskey, for my money, is the real star here.

While it can be said that Jackson’s King Kong and Hobbit films fell short due to their bloated runtimes, perhaps because his self-indulgent whims were permitted following his triumph with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, what can’t be argued here, though, is that 30 years on, Heavenly Creatures is still an incredibly powerful film—one that still feels as fresh and exciting as it did back then. Highly recommended.

NEW ZEALAND • GERMANY | 1994 | 99 MINUTES (THEATRICAL) 109 MINUTES (DIRECTOR’S CUT) | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • FRENCH • SPANISH

Cast & Crew

director: Peter Jackson.
writers: Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson.
starring: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison & Simon O’Connor.