Heavenly Creatures - review

Based on the true story of Pauline Parker & Juliet Hulme and told through Pauline’s diary entries, Heavenly Creatures tells the story of how Pauline and Juliet became friends at school and soon realised they couldn’t bear to be apart.

Opening with a scene of both Pauline & Juliet running through woodland covered in blood and screaming for help, I was intrigued to find out the storyline of this movie as I wasn’t aware of the real circumstances it was based on and although I found it to be quite strange, I can understand how the conclusion of the girls story came to happen.

Growing up as a teenager in the 1950’s, New Zealander Pauline is an outsider who much prefers to make up stories and create plasticine models to spending time with other girls, that is until English girl Juliet arrives at school full of stories of how she grew up separated from her parents due to illness and how she has travelled the world.

Bonding over their shared passion for making up tales and living in their imaginations, Pauline and Juliet become inseparable to the concern of both their families who encourage them to spend time apart, but when Juliet is told her parents are separating and she will be moving to South Africa to stay with her aunt, both girls are devastated.

Despite attempts to reconsider, Pauline & Juliet realise there’s nothing they can do to prevent them being torn apart until Pauline comes up with the idea of murder. As her mother is the driving force for the girls to be separated, Pauline decides if she is no longer around she will be free from her control.

So after sharing her plan with Juliet, the girls arrange a day trip with Honora knowing that only 2 of them will return, but as they walk deeper into the woodland the time arrives for them to decide whether or not to go through with their plan.

Marking the film debut of both Melanie Lynskey (Two & a Half Men) and Kate Winslet, this movie was an interesting look at how an intense friendship can quickly become the main focus of life causing people to consider anything to remain together.