Heavenly Creatures | | Cast : | Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse | | Director : | Peter Jackson | | Studio : | Miramax Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned | | Released Date : | January 01, 1994 | | DVD Released Date : | September 24, 2002 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | A (very) short review | Content
 | What can I say about this movie? It really touched me. It's about two girls, Juliet and Pauline, who become friends and face several hardships which eventually lead them to murder one of their parents. There's more to it then that though. The two girls, they make up their own world, with their own characters with their own rules. They eventually depend on each other. I guess what gets to me about the film is about how real it felt. What the girls do, they run around, play about, write stories, idolize the teen idols of the day (Including Mario Lanza and James Mason. Orson Wells is excluded from their idols because Juliet calls him hideous.), they way they interact with each reminds me of what I do with my friends, and that one friend in particual. Of course, I'm 15 the age of these girls so I relate to them much more then an adult would, I believe. It's a darker tone film with some quirky effects that one expects from Peter Jackson. Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey give stunning performances, especially since this was their film debut. It doesn't contain the gore that one would expect considering Jackson's previous works like Braindead and Bad Taste, but there is one murder scene but it's truly chilling, ranking up there with one of the worse murders to be filmed, on my own opinion. I love this film to death and it makes me cry every time I see it. It just feels, so real. Even when clay figures come to life in the girl's fantasy, it doesn't seem to break any barriers, it feels with in reach of reality.
I highly reccomend at least one viewing. If you're under 18 you may find a few things hit a bit closer to home then you'd like... |
| Rating | | | Date | July 02, 2005 | | Summary | MOMMIE DEAREST | Content
| HEAVENLY CREATURES is one of the films Peter Jackson directed before he reached superstar status with the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Jackson gives us a bizarre, insightful, but ultimately, dissatisfying look at two young girls who think murder is the answer to all of their problems. Knowing that one of the girls (Juliet) grew up to be acclaimed mystery novelist Anne Perry adds a sense of irony. Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet give flawless performances, eliciting that awkward innocence of youth, but their chilling deviousness in plotting the murder of Lynskey's mother gives an underlying chill to this innocence. Jackson's fantasy scenes are marvelous, presaging his finesse to come. But can one really sympathize with these two girls? I didn't...Lynskey's mother is nothing more than a concerned mother who has a right to question her daughter's rebellious behavior...she is no more callous or harsh than any one's mother. The brutal murder comes after a painstakingly deliberate pace which adds an even more hideous reaction to these young girl's actions. From a filmmaking standpoint, HEAVENLY CREATURES is exceptionally well done, but for entertainment value, it's hard to be entertained by such self-centered youngsters. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 22, 2005 | | Summary | Scenes are cut for a reason! | Content
| Sometimes a director cuts scenes for a reason. Although this DVD is the "uncut" version, the original theatrical release is highly preferable in that it excludes scenes that really add nothing to the story (watch some well-known films, such as Apocalypse Now, and it's usually the case that the deleted scenes more often than not bog down the narrative). The extra scenes here in this DVD serve only to impede the excellent pacing and relentless build-up to the chilling conclusion. And the final frame of a bloodied Parker detracts from the original cut's ending. The original depiction is quite powerful enough and better conveys her anguish and total despair. This 'uncut' ending only serves to focus attention on the murder itself instead of the overall emotional consequences of her actions and the pair's final separation.
Be that as it may, Heavenly Creatures is still one of my all-time favorite films. If only they'd offer a DVD with BOTH versions! |
| Rating | | | Date | March 22, 2005 | | Summary | Interesting at first but gets tedious quickly! | Content
| The first thirty minutes of this movie are by far its strongest: we see the oppressive and provincial girls' Catholic school being turned upside down by the arrival of a worldly and precocious outsider, Kate Winslet in her trademark finest spunky form.
After that the next 30 minutes are spent elaborating on how much Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey develop an intense codependency on each other, as a natural result of Winslet's traumatic childhood and emotionally distant parents, and Lynskey's deep insecurities as a result of her looks and class. Kind of your typical pretty-girl-ugly-girl combination, to put it bluntly. They pretty much create an incredibly vivid and powerful fantasy world that they inhabit together, and which will propel them towards the murder and mayhem of the last 30 minutes of the movie.
I bailed out with about 25 minutes left to go because by that time it was painfully obvious what was going to happen, and if there's one thing I really cannot stand, it's a painfully predictable and obvious movie especially one involving a long downhill slide that you can see coming a thousand miles away...King Lear type stuff. However I was already starting to get restless about 45 minutes into the movie...I stayed longer mainly to finish the very good bottle of wine I'd opened, LOL!
You can sort of see Peter Jackson's talent in all the fantasy scenes which he brings to another level in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also Kate Winslet's onscreen charisma (this was her film debut apparently) which continues to make her one of my favorite actresses. The cast is pretty much flawless, the film is well shot---but all those factors simply cannot save a fairly dull and commonplace plot that really would be better suited for some Made-For-TV movie, not a real feature film. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 21, 2004 | | Summary | "Not all angels are innocent" | Content
| Pauline Rieper (New Zealand native Melanie Lynskey, "Sweet Home Alabama")has a dull and unhappy life at home with her family. And since none of the other girls at school understand her, she has no friends. The Hulme family moves in town from England, and their daughter Juliet (Winslet, who won the part over 175 other girls) clicks instantly with Pauline, especially since the girls share a love of literature and fantasy. In their creative minds, they begin to write about a ficticious world they want to be in; these parts of the film are shown with life-size versions of the clay model characters they make. Juliet and Pauline are inseperable, mainly because Juliet's wealthy parents always seem to be trying to ditch her, and Pauline is humiliated by her father and suffocated by her mother. But the girls parents, particularly Pauline's mother, begin to notice bizarre behavior from them, and decide that they need to see less of each other. What else are two disturbed girls to do but conspire to kill the person that wants to keep them apart?
Not only is this a true story, it came out in 1994, while Jackson ("Lord of the Rings" fame) was filming this, that Juliet Hulme was actually mystery novel writer Anne Perry. Pauline Rieper was tracked down in 1997 in a run down cottage, apparently living under the name Hilary Nathan, and has since become a devout Catholic who spends her time helping handicapped children. Aparrently, they were eventually released from prison under the condition that they never see each other again. Jackson has an uncredited cameo, playing a bum that gets kissed by Winslet's character outside a theatre. All of the journal voice-overs are direct from real diary entries made by Pauline Rieper. Also, almost all locations used for filming were the genuine locations where the events occurred. The tea shop where Honorah Parker ate her last meal was knocked down a few days after the shoot ended. According to Jackson, when they got to the location of the murder on the dirt path, it was eerily quiet; the birds stopped singing, and it didn't seem right. So they moved along a couple of hundred yards. Fascinating movie; no DVD extras, but there is another 10 minutes or so of footage not seen in the original cut. |
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