Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 22, 1995 TAG: 9504260027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The setting is Christchurch, New Zealand, in the early 1950s. In the opening montage, two teen-aged girls, their faces bloody, race through thick brush. Breathless, they tell the first adult they see, ``It's Mommy; she's terribly hurt!'' Actually she's dead. The rest of the film explains what led up to that moment.
Initially, schoolmates Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliette Hulme (Kate Winslet) appear to be thorough opposites. Pauline is dark-haired, thick and shy. She peers suspiciously out at the world from beneath heavy brows. Her parents take in boarders to make ends meet.
Juliette is blonde, slim and completely full of herself. Her father is a college administrator; mother's a marriage counselor. She has traveled everywhere and is quick to let teachers and students at her new school know about it. The two girls have nothing in common, save childhood ailments and hyperactive imaginations.
They become immediately inseparable; two girls in constant motion, overflowing with energy, never still, never quiet.
To Pauline, Juliette's family is something out of a fairy tale. And though Juliette is the leader when Pauline visits her home, Pauline is not simply a follower. The relationship between the two is much more complex. They create an elaborate fantasy world, populated by such ``saints'' as Mario Lanza and James Mason - the Michael Jackson and Brad Pitt of their day - and create new personalities for themselves in this ``fourth world,'' as they call it. When the ``real'' world of adults threatens their construction, Pauline and Juliette strike back.
Director (and co-writer with Frances Walsh) Peter Jackson utilizes a few impressive special effects to take viewers into the girls' fantasy life. It's a powerful creation of emerging sexuality, romance and desire. If anyone doubts the validity of the story, Jackson and Walsh based much of it on Pauline's own diary entries, which provide occasional voice-over narration.
That combination of reportage and psychological fantasy makes ``Heavenly Creatures'' a constantly surprising film. Toward the end, when most psychological tales are settling into familiar directions, this one still has some startling moments.
It's so strongly realized and disquieting that some viewers may have trouble with the story. But for those who have grown tired of predictable Hollywood fare, ``Heavenly Creatures'' is a bracing change.
(In an ironic postscript, it has been revealed since the film's release that Juliette grew up to become mystery writer Anne Perry.)
Heavenly Creatures
*** 1/2
A Miramax release playing at the Grandin Theatre. 99 min. Rated R for subject matter, sexual content, brief nudity, violence.
by CNB