Sadly Over-hyped

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Jackson tackles the Parker-Hulme murder case. In 1950's New Zealand, two teenage girls formed an intense friendship largely driven by a shared fantasy world they had created populated by a fairy tale royal family and movie stars they were obsessed with. When their parents became concerned that the relationship was too intense (and worries of lesbianism reared their ugly heads), the girls murdered one of their mothers in an effort to stay together. In what is Jackson's best film, he focuses on the intensity of their friendship and the heightened fantasy they lived in. A lot of Jackson's flaws as a filmmaker are present ... the film is too long and he encourages weird comedic overacting from some of his performers ... but it's definitely his most fully developed film, capturing the reasons that drove these girls as well as the tragedy of the story's outcome.

Heavenly Creatures has everything you could ask for in a film: intense female friendship turned romantic, estrangement from others leading to unhealthy & fantastical escapes, loving parental figures, planned murder. With an added personality disorder, child-aged character, theme of societal satire, or suicide; this film would have topped my charts.First exposure was as always in form of The Simpsons; one of the few good modern episodes: Lisa The Drama Queen, where Lisa befriends a girl and together they create a fantasy world in order to escape everyday life. Another film to add to the ~dangerously intense relationships~ list.

Kate Winslet is Juliet Hulme, a bright eyed schoolgirl with golden locks, a radiant smile, and a British accent that makes her stunningly exotic, or at least to the strictly Catholic New Zealand school. Melanie Lynskey is Pauline Parker, whose hair is almost as dark as her glare, and whom no doubt wishes she could exchange her thick New Zealand accent for something a bit striking and otherworldly. These are two girls who would not normally be drawn to each other, but because of medical conditions, find themselves a close friendship. Jackson indicates the blossoming of this by letting the debut actresses act, and be teenage girls; after the first conversation, Paul hurries home, dodging her mother's question to put on a new record - Mario Lanza, the world's greatest tenor, and her blissful reaction is all we need to know. They are both terrific performances and scream children instead of actresses reading lines in each little symptom of girls lost in their own worlds; the mocking tones in which Juliet mimics a 'friend' of her mother's, the way Paul drops her head into her hands whenever she is embarrassed by her father singing into a fish or her mother welcoming a boarder, how they skip together hand in hand and giggle and laugh endlessly in their own imagination. The visual effects, which are noticeably dated, seem to fit quite well with the context. When they first visualise the Fourth World, the mundane New Zealand is physically wiped away in swathes for the idyllic gardens and unicorns and giant butterflies, and a golden glow bathes their playtime. It does not look fluid or smooth, but transforms itself in the same way in which a child's mind unlocks little segments of their daydreams. The soundtrack tinkles along, Mario Lanza serenades, and the camera weaves and swoops its way through the air like the outstretched arms that they have exchanged for aeroplane wings, and swivels around in excitement. A show-tune could easily be dropped in here, and the whole scene could insert itself into Mary Poppins without a touch of difference. When they build a sandcastle, they lovingly craft intricate details and a storyline to match, and the camera makes itself tiny and matches each gallop of the sound design as it tours the majestic building, matching their vivid imagination. Only later, as the Fourth World leaks into the real, does the sound become more menacing; as irritations are beheaded and gutted for upsetting the creator. Aside from those bursts of imaginative violence (which all of us have had once in a while, even as adults - but this films takes it further), Jackson subtly imbues the real world with a haunting, suffocating quality, as if the girl's dreamland has begun to affect how they see reality, and how little they want to return to it. When a pastor offers up a pamphlet emblazoned with Jesus, there is a loud whoosh, dramatising how horrifying this confrontation must be, before a clay figure drags him away for execution. An extreme closeup likewise does the same to evil word the doctor theorises, a taboo back in the 50s. But I think it is much more than just physical love that they share; it is something much stronger. When Paul goes in search of the latter, the camera hovers over a backyard full of junk, and she is presented, climbed the railing, as some sort of prince to a Rapunzel, or a Romeo to a Juliet, in search of that romance in vain. That search leads her back to Juliet, who descends the staircase while the score crescendos in a gown and manner gracefully reminiscent of Cinderella, and Paul's face is awash with a sensual red glow. Harsh green light seems to constantly leak in through the windows, creating a sickly aura that seems to chase the girls and wind down the time they have together. When they are in separate beds, Selkirk hovers over the back of a nurse and smoothly connects the pair through their letters, and then the red and blue glows merge into each other so gorgeously, and they spend the night. All the while, Paul's diary voice-over narrates, and gives us insight into this relationship. It covers every thing from the childhood trivialities to the passionate moments, and is spoken with such a haughty distaste for the real and a wondrous longing for the imaginary. It almost seems normal and consequential when those shocking words are finally dropped: remove mother. This is the film's crowning achievement: to immerse us into Paul and Juliet's world, to make it so seductive, to make themselves so unconditionally necessary to each other, and then to slip in something so trivial, like murder. And it almost manages to convince us it is justified.

Juliet and Pauline are two girls that become very good friends in a brief period of time, and I couldn't, exactly, understand why. Winslet's character is an arrogant teenager that enjoys being seen as the smartest one. Pauline, on the other hand, seems to be some ordinary girl with some strong anger towards her parents, and the plot never really reveals the reason for it. She's also a naive girl when it comes to sex, which can be noticed in the scenes she shares with an older boy. Even thought a lot of people considered it to be a great film, I didn't like it that much. In my opinion, the plot is too slow and contrived, reason why I felt bored during almost all the way through. However, I'm gonna admit that the final scenes are surprisingly intense and hard to be seen, but that's the only "great" moment in the whole picture. "Titanic" was really a better choice for Kate Winslet...