Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Heavenly Creatures was Peter Jackson’s third giant leap towards cinematic greatness; the first being the amazing Bad Taste and the second the astounding Braindead (AKA Dead Alive). This time Jackson turned to the true story that horrified the sleepy, tranquil city of Christchurch back in the early 1950’s – the supposedly innocent days of Doris Day and Mario Lanza. Two precociously intelligent yet hopelessly outcast schoolgirls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, aged just sixteen and fifteen respectively, are brought together by fate and gradually become consumed by one another. Together they weave an elaborate fantasy world that slowly overtakes reality. At first it appears to be little more than harmless schoolgirl escapism, but beneath the surface something much darker is stirring.

Pauline is a dowdy, dark-haired, frumpy and permanently disgruntled teenager carrying around a burden of thoughts she shares with nobody until Juliet arrives. Prissy, cocky and brimming with English self-assurance, Juliet immediately enchants Pauline with her confidence, irreverence and wonderfully wicked imagination. Pauline gazes at her new friend with open admiration and soon the two become inseparable.

“Only the best people get bone diseases and heart trouble,” proclaims Juliet, creating an exclusive little world inhabited only by the two of them—a private kingdom where they stand together against the rest of the dull, ordinary world.

Their increasingly unhealthy obsession eventually alarms both sets of parents, who attempt to separate the girls. It proves to be a catastrophic miscalculation.

Kate Winslet is sensational in her screen debut as the insecure yet outwardly fearless Juliet, a young girl harbouring deep resentments beneath a dazzling smile. Melanie Lynskey is every bit her equal as Pauline, whose simmering anger and loneliness dissolve only in Juliet’s company. Peter Jackson elicits two extraordinary performances from his young actresses and handles the material with astonishing confidence and sensitivity.

Never does the viewer’s interest waver. We are swept along by superb performances, breathtaking visuals and, perhaps most importantly, an exceptional screenplay by Jackson and Frances Walsh. The fantasy sequences are realised with extraordinary imagination, perfectly illustrating the girls’ gradual retreat from reality without ever losing emotional credibility.

This is very nearly a masterwork—beautifully acted, brilliantly written and directed with immense assurance. Looking back now, it is fascinating to see Jackson’s extraordinary visual imagination already fully formed years before international fame arrived. Like Sam Raimi, another filmmaker whose roots lay in outrageous horror cinema, Jackson brought an energy and inventiveness sadly lacking in many of his contemporaries.

Some viewers may find the restless camerawork employed by both Jackson and Raimi a little too energetic for their taste, but at least their films possess genuine personality rather than the empty visual flash that became the hallmark of so many directors raised on commercials and MTV aesthetics.

Perhaps Jackson’s success with The Lord of the Rings encouraged audiences to rediscover Heavenly Creatures, because hidden within is one of the finest films of the 1990’s. It announced not only a remarkable filmmaker but also introduced two exceptional young actresses to the world. Few directors can boast as astonishing an opening run of films as Peter Jackson—and precious few have begun quite so spectacularly.