Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures is a 1994 New Zealand biographical psychological drama film directed by Peter Jackson, from a screenplay he co-wrote with his partner, Fran Walsh, and starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their feature film debuts, with supporting roles by Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, and Simon O'Connor. Based on the notorious 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in Christchurch, the film focuses on the relationship between two teenage girls—Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme—which culminates in the murder of Parker's mother. The events of the film span the period from their meeting in 1952 to the murder in 1954.
The film opened in 1994 at the 51st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion and became one of the best-received films of the year. Reviewers praised most aspects of the production, with particular attention given to the performances by the previously unknown Winslet and Lynskey, as well as for Jackson's directing. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Plot
In 1952 Christchurch, Juliet Hulme, an affluent 13-year-old English girl, transfers to a new school and befriends Pauline Parker, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family. Bonding over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, they develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty.
Unlike the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family, Pauline's relationship with her mother Honora is hostile and the two fight constantly. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted.
Together Juliet and Pauline paint, write stories, make figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and made into films in Hollywood. Over time it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies.
During a day trip to Port Levy, Juliet's parents announce their plan to go on a trip together, leaving Juliet by herself. Hysterical at the prospect of being left alone, Juliet experiences the Fourth World for the first time, perceiving it as a land where all is beautiful and she is safe. She asks Pauline to come with her, and this world also becomes visible to Pauline. This shared spiritual vision confirms their Fourth World belief and begins to affect their perception of events in the everyday world.
When Juliet is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a clinic, she and Pauline begin writing to each other, not only as themselves but in the roles of the royal couple of Borovnia. During this time Pauline has a sexual relationship with a lodger, making Juliet jealous. Their fantasy life becomes a useful escape from the real world, and the two engage in increasingly violent, even murderous, fantasies about people who oppress them. After Juliet is released from the clinic, their relationship intensifies. Wary of her attachment to Pauline, Juliet's father speaks to Pauline's parents, who take her to a doctor. The doctor suspects that Pauline is homosexual and uses it to explain her dramatic weight loss and increasing anger at her mother.
Juliet's parents announce their intention to divorce and leave Christchurch, with Juliet to stay with a relative in South Africa. Increasingly distraught at the thought of separation, the two girls plan to run away together. When that plan becomes impossible, the two share a bathtub and talk about murdering Pauline's mother, seeing her as the primary obstacle to their being together.
The two girls spend the last three weeks together at Juliet's house. At the end of that time, Pauline returns home and the two finalize plans for the murder. Honora plans a trip for the three of them to Victoria Park. After having tea, the three walk on a path down a steep hillside. When Honora bends over to pick up a pink charm the girls have deliberately dropped, Juliet and Pauline bludgeon her to death with a broken piece of brick put in an old stocking.
A post-script states that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder; that, as the girls were too young to face the death penalty, both were sentenced to serve five years in prison; that they were released separately in 1959 on a condition that they never see each other again.
Cast
Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme
Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker
Sarah Peirse as Honora Parker
Diana Kent as Hilda Hulme
Clive Merrison as Dr. Henry Hulme
Simon O'Connor as Herbert Rieper
Jed Brophy as John
Peter Elliott as Bill Perry
Gilbert Goldie as Dr. Bennett
Elizabeth Moody as Miss Waller
Production
Development
Fran Walsh suggested to Peter Jackson (who was noted for horror-comedy films) that they write a film about the notorious Parker-Hulme murder. Jackson took the idea to his long-time collaborator, producer Jim Booth (who died after filming). The three filmmakers decided that the film should tell the story of the friendship between the two girls rather than focus on the murder and trial. "The friendship was for the most part a rich and rewarding one, and we tried to honour that in the film. It was our intention to make a film about a friendship that went terribly wrong," said Peter Jackson.
Walsh had been interested in the case since her early childhood. "I first came across it in the late Sixties when I was ten years old. The Sunday Times devoted two whole pages to the story with an accompanying illustration of the two girls. I was struck by the description of the dark and mysterious friendship that existed between them—by the uniqueness of the world the two girls had created for themselves."
Jackson and Walsh researched the story by reading contemporary newspaper accounts of the trial. They decided that the sensational aspects of the case that so titillated newspaper readers in 1954 were far removed from the story that Jackson and Walsh wished to tell. "In the 1950s, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were branded as possibly the most evil people on earth. What they had done seemed without rational explanation, and people could only assume that there was something terribly wrong with their minds," states Jackson. To bring a more humane version of events to the screen, the filmmakers undertook a nationwide search for people who had had close involvement with Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme forty years earlier. This included tracing and interviewing seventeen of their former classmates and teachers from Christchurch Girls' High School. In addition, Jackson and Walsh spoke to neighbours, family friends, colleagues, police officers, lawyers and psychologists. Jackson and Walsh also read Pauline's diary, in which she made daily entries documenting her friendship with Juliet Hulme and events throughout their relationship. From the diary entries it became apparent that Pauline and Juliet were intelligent, imaginative, outcast young women who possessed a wicked and somewhat irreverent sense of humour. In the film all of Pauline's voice-overs are excerpts from her journal entries.
Casting
The role of Pauline was cast after Walsh scouted schools all over New Zealand to find a Pauline 'look-alike'. She had trouble finding an actress who resembled Pauline and had acting talent before discovering Melanie Lynskey. Kate Winslet was among 175 girls to audition for the film and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part. The girls were both so absorbed by their roles that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website.
Principal photography
The entire film was shot on location in Christchurch in 1993. Jackson has been quoted as saying "Heavenly Creatures is based on a true story, and as such I felt it important to shoot the movie on locations where the actual events took place."
Post-production
The visual effects in the film were handled by the then newly created Weta Digital. The girls' fantasy life, and the ‘Borovnian’ extras (the characters the girls made up) were supervised by Richard Taylor whilst the digital effects were supervised by George Port. Taylor and his team constructed more than 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the Borovnian crowds—plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world. Heavenly Creatures contains more than thirty shots that were digitally manipulated, ranging from the morphing garden of the ‘Fourth World’ to castles in fields and the sequences with "Orson Welles" (played by Jean Guérin).
Music
"Just a Closer Walk with Thee" – Choirs of Burnside High School, Cashmere High School, Hagley Community College, Villa Maria College
"Be My Love" – written by Nicholas Brodszky, Sammy Cahn; performed by Mario Lanza
"The Donkey Serenade" – performed by Mario Lanza
"(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" – Bob Merrill; performed by the actors
"Funiculì, Funiculà" – written by Luigi Denza, Peppino Turco; performed by Mario Lanza
"E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Peter Dvorský
"The Loveliest Night of the Year" – performed by Mario Lanza
"Sono Andati" from La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Kate Winslet
"The Humming Chorus" from Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini – performed by the Hungarian State Opera
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – performed by Mario Lanza
Reception
Critical response
Heavenly Creatures garnered wide critical praise. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 95% score based on 108 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dark, stylish, and captivating, Heavenly Creatures signals both the auspicious debut of Kate Winslet and the arrival of Peter Jackson as more than just a cult director." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 86 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Nick Hyman, writing for Metacritic, thought that 1994's Oscar-winning Forrest Gump was equally matched by "Memorable Film(s) Not Nominated for Best Picture", including Heavenly Creatures, of which Hyman said, "Peter Jackson's masterful blend of fantastical visions and a heartbreaking real-life murder tragedy has arguably never been topped."
Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a B+ and said, "Set in the early '50s, in the New Zealand village of Christchurch, this ripe hallucination of a movie – a rhapsody in purple – has been photographed in sun-drenched candy color that lends it the surreal clarity of a dream... There's something bracing about the way that Heavenly Creatures serves up its heroines' fantasies with literal-minded brute force." Gleiberman complains that Jackson never quite explains "why the two girls have metamorphosed into the '50s teenybop answer to Leopold and Loeb," yet concludes, "Still, if the pleasures of Heavenly Creatures remain defiantly on the surface, on that level the movie is a dazzler."
Box office
Heavenly Creatures had a limited box office success but performed admirably in various countries, including the United States, where it grossed a total of $3,049,135 during its limited run in 57 theatres; it grossed $5,438,120 worldwide. In the US it opened on two screens in New York City (Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza) and had the biggest per-screen gross of the weekend with an average of $15,796, grossing $41,323 in its opening 5 days.
Accolades
Heavenly Creatures was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay and won for Best British Actress at the 1st Empire Awards. It featured in a number of international film festivals, and received very favourable reviews worldwide.
Miramax International believed that reception at the Cannes Film Festival would make the film more appealing than it already was.
The film made top ten of the year lists in Time, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New Zealand Herald. It appears in Schneider's book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
The film also did exceptionally well at the 1995 New Zealand film and television awards.
Year-end lists
3rd – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
5th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
5th – Yardena Arar, Los Angeles Daily News
9th – Desson Howe, The Washington Post
9th – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Matt Zoller Seitz, Dallas Observer
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Eleanor Ringel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Steve Murray, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune
Top 10 (not ranked) – Betsy Pickle, Knoxville News-Sentinel
Honorable mention – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post
Honorable mention – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman
Honorable mention – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
Awards
Home media
In 1996 the film was released on videocassette and on Laserdisc at its original runtime of 99 minutes. In 2002 the film received DVD releases in Region 1 and Region 4 in an uncut version, which ran for 109 minutes. Region 2 released the original 99-minute theatrical version.
See also
"Lisa the Drama Queen", an episode of The Simpsons loosely based on the film.
Don't Deliver Us from Evil, another film loosely based on the Parker–Hulme case.
References
Bibliography
Elleray, Michelle. "Heavenly Creatures in Godzone" in: Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film. Edited by Ellis Hanson. Duke University Press, 1999. pp. 223+. .
External links
Heavenly Creatures at NZ On Screen
heavenly-creatures.com fanwebsite with an impressive amount of information on both the movie and the Parker-Hulme murder case.
1990s New Zealand films
1990s biographical drama films
1990s buddy drama films
1990s coming-of-age drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s female buddy films
1990s psychological drama films
1994 films
1994 crime drama films
1994 independent films
1994 LGBT-related films
Biographical films about writers
Christchurch
Crime films based on actual events
Cultural depictions of Orson Welles
Drama films based on actual events
Films about murderers
Films about social class
Films directed by Peter Jackson
Films produced by Peter Jackson
Films set in 1952
Films set in 1953
Films set in 1954
Films set in New Zealand
Films shot in New Zealand
Films with screenplays by Fran Walsh
Films with screenplays by Peter Jackson
LGBT-related buddy drama films
LGBT-related coming-of-age films
LGBT-related films based on actual events
Matricide in fiction
Miramax films
New Zealand biographical drama films
New Zealand coming-of-age drama films
New Zealand crime drama films
New Zealand independent films
New Zealand LGBT-related films
Teen crime films
WingNut Films films