Heavenly Creatures

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.[4]

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.[4] 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 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 with neighbours, family friends, colleagues, policemen, 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 humor. In the film, all of Pauline's voice-overs are excerpts from her journal entries.

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 auditioned for the part of Juliet, winning the role over 175 other girls. 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.

The entire film was shot on location in Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand 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."[4]

The visual effects in the film were handled by the then newly created Weta Digital.[5] The girls' fantasy life, and the "Borovnian" extras (the characters the girls made up) were supervised by Richard Taylor while the digital effects were supervised by George Port. Taylor and his team constructed over 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the "Borovnian" crowds—plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world. Heavenly Creatures contains over thirty shots that were digitally manipulated ranging from the morphing garden of the "Fourth World," to castles in fields, to the sequences with "Orson Welles" (played by Jean Guérin).

1. "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" – Choirs of Burnside High School, Cashmere High School, Hagley Community College, Villa Maria College
2. "Be My Love" – written by Nicholas Brodszky, Sammy Cahn; performed by Mario Lanza
3. "The Donkey Serenade" – performed by Mario Lanza
4. "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" – Bob Merrill; performed by the actors
5. "Funiculì, Funiculà" – written by Luigi Denza, Peppino Turco; performed by Mario Lanza
6. "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Peter Dvorský
7. "The Loveliest Night of the Year" – performed by Mario Lanza
8. "Sono Andati" from La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Kate Winslet
9. "The Humming Chorus" from Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini – performed by the Hungarian State Opera
10. "You'll Never Walk Alone" – performed by Mario Lanza

The film has garnered wide critical praise. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes listed a 92% score based on 50 reviews, with an average 8.15/10 rating. 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."[6]

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."[7]

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."[8]

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 gained $5,438,120 worldwide.

Heavenly Creatures was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay and won for Best British Actress at the 1st Empire Awards.[9] 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.[10]

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.

• 3rd – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times[11]
• 5th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times[11]
• 5th – Yardena Arar, Los Angeles Daily News[12]
• 9th – Desson Howe, The Washington Post[13]
• 9th – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News[14]
• Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Matt Zoller Seitz, Dallas Observer[15]
• Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Eleanor Ringel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution[16]
• Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Steve Murray, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution[16]
• Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune[17]
• Top 10 (not ranked) – Betsy Pickle, Knoxville News-Sentinel[18]
• Honorable mention – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post[19]
• Honorable mention – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman[20]
• Honorable mention – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News[21]