Heavenly Creatures Movie Review

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Watch the trailer
Written by: Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson (screenplay)  
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Starring: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse
Rated: R

Plot
Two teenagers form a friendship that turns obsessive and overly-dependent.

Verdict
This movie starts as a slice of life genre with two outcast teenagers bonding, but then it becomes bonkers. Peter Jackson does a great job of capturing that madness. It's based on a true story and both actresses do a great job. If you're interested in early Jackson and Winslet work, this is it. Lynskey had a recurring role in Two and a Half Men. It's an interesting story and well made, but I can't find an anchor point. I don't get the why, other than some people are delusional and crazy.
It depends.

Review
This movie is bonkers. You get a hint with the opening Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet (Kate Winslet) run through the woods screaming, drenched in blood. Then it cuts to a classroom and I'm left wondering what I just saw. It is the trope of showing the end first which I can't stand. It's cheap storytelling, but at least in this instance it left me bewildered, which is better than revealing the entire ending.

The story is about two high school girls who become friends. This is based on a true story, but if it wasn't I would have to question the sanity of Pauline. If this were a different movie I could argue Juliet is her imaginary friend since Juliet is some sort of genius. She can do everything expertly and knows more than her teachers. From the top the movie stated it's viewpoint is Pauline's as told from her diary. Juliet could be how Pauline saw her, the events could be fictitious as Pauline's grasp on reality is tenuous at best. 

Heavenly Creatures - Being in love is a crazy thing.

The girls are highly imaginative, creating this fantasy world of kings and queens. For high school girls, it felt off. They get really involved in these stories and even experience a shared hallucination. The hallucination was a crazy left turn. As I learn more about the girls, the crazier they and the movie becomes, working in tandem. We go deeper down the rabbit hole and I question where reality begins and ends. Were both girls mad or did Pauline turn Juliet. Our narrator is unreliable because she's certifiable. Are they friends, lovers, or something else entirely?
Their bond is completely unhealthy and they begin plotting ways to stop their parents from separating them. I won' t spoil the ending, but title cards inform us the girls went to jail and a stipulation of their release was that they would never contact each other.

Jackson does a great job directing. The movie maintains a manic level of energy that intensifies as reality slips away and madness descends. There is a lot of CGI work that often looks bad. Even as old as this movie is, Jurassic Park (1994) came out a year earlier and it's a world of difference, though the budget difference is huge.