Heavenly Creatures

    Heavenly Creatures
    1994

    Synopsis

    Wealthy and precocious teenager Juliet transfers from England to New Zealand with her family, and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. When their parents begin to suspect that their increasingly intense and obsessive bond is becoming unhealthy, the girls hatch a dark plan for those who threaten to keep them apart.

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    Cast

    • Melanie LynskeyPauline Parker
    • Kate WinsletJuliet Hulme
    • Sarah PeirseHonorah Parker Rieper
    • Diana KentHilda Hulme
    • Clive MerrisonDr. Henry Hulme
    • Simon O'ConnorHerbert Rieper
    • Jed BrophyJohn / Nicholas
    • Peter ElliottBill Perry
    • Gilbert GoldieDr. Bennett
    • Geoffrey HeathRev. Norris

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Rolling Stone

      Jackson’s visionary triumph, heightened by the blazing performances of Lynskey and Winslet and by Alun Bollinger’s whirling camera, is in capturing the delirium as the girls whip themselves into an erotic frenzy with Mario Lanza records, semi-naked dances in the woods and revenge fantasies.
    • 100

      Los Angeles Times

      This ability to get inside hysteria and obsession, the skill to make us feel sensations as intensely as its protagonists, is what makes “Creatures” memorable.
    • 100

      Washington Post

      Stunning.
    • 100

      Variety

      An exhilarating retelling of a 1950s tabloid murder, it combines original vision, a drop-dead command of the medium and a successful marriage between a dazzling, kinetic techno-show and a complex, credible portrait of the out-of-control relationship between the crime’s two schoolgirl perpetrators.
    • 90

      Time Out

      Jackson's film is distinguished by the intensity of the girls' secretive relationship. If the busy camera movements used to convey the heady exhilaration of their early encounters are irritating, the sense of claustrophobic immersion in private mysteries is palpable. Acted with conviction, and directed and written with febrile vibrancy.
    • 90

      Washington Post

      As Juliet, Winslet is a bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she’s in. She’s offset perfectly by Lynskey, whose quietly smoldering Pauline completes the delicate, dangerous partnership.
    • 88

      ReelViews

      Revealed in unforgettable fashion by a capable director, the events that unfold in this film are not easily forgotten.
    • 88

      Chicago Sun-Times

      What makes Jackson's film enthralling and frightening is the way it shows these two unhappy girls, creating an alternative world so safe and attractive they thought it was worth killing for.

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