Heavenly Creatures is a 1994 drama film directed by Peter Jackson and written with his partner Fran Walsh. It is based on the notorious 1954 Parker-Hulme murder, committed by two teenage girls in Christchurch, New Zealand. The film stars Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker, Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme and Sarah Peirse as Honora Rieper and deals with the obsessive relationship between Parker and Hulme, who murder Parker's mother to avoid a potential separation when the mother fears their relationship is bordering on lesbianism.
Heavenly Creatures departs strongly, stylistically and dramatically from Jackson’s former films, which were mostly graphic slapstick productions.[1] However, the film retains his elaborate fantasy sequences, used in the film to show the imaginary world of the main characters. The film was shot on location in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1993. While not a huge international commercial success, Heavenly Creatures opened to strong critical acclaim in 1994 at the Venice Film Festival, celebrated for its visual effects and acting from the then-newcomers and the directing achieved by Jackson. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, a Silver Lion for Best Director and the Jury Grand Prize for Best Film. Due to the film's success in advance screenings, studio executives decided to distribute it in a much wider release than ever before internationally, rather than just New Zealand and the United States.
It is considered a cult movie.[2]
Plot
In 1950s Christchurch, New Zealand, a fourteen year old girl from a working class family Pauline Parker (Lynskey) befriends the more affluent English fifteen year old Juliet Hulme (Winslet) when Juliet transfers to Pauline's school. Together they create fantasy worlds and become close friends. Over the course of two years, their friendship grows more and more intense.
Juliet invites Pauline to her home in Ilam, a suburb of Christchurch. Pauline finds herself amazed by the wealth of Juliet's family. The girls soon develop a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia, and begin to dress up and enact the adventures of the royal family. They then write out the storylines as short novels, which they hope to publish in America. At the same time, they begin inventing a quasi-religion centred around an imaginary place called 'The Fourth World', where they worship their favorite film stars and opera singers as saints.
Juliet has an attack of tuberculosis and is sent to a clinic. Pauline is desolate without her, and the two begin an intense correspondence, writing not only as themselves, but in the roles of the royal couple. Pauline, who sleeps in one of the small rooms that are a part of the boarding house her parents run, is courted unromantically by John, one of the boarders who is in love with her, and she loses the small amount of privacy she has, when the man is discovered in bed with her by her father. After four months, Juliet is released from the clinic and their relationship continues. Pauline records their relationship in a diary, which was given to her by her father for Christmas.
By now, the girls' relationship has become incredibly strong. Juliet’s father arrives at the Parker house and discusses the girls' intense relationship. He insists that Pauline’s mother, Honora, must take Pauline to a doctor. The doctor suggests Pauline may be homosexual - regarded as a mental illness in 1950's New Zealand. The parents agree that the girls must be separated. They will be allowed to spend two weeks together before Juliet moves to South Africa to live with her aunt Enna, ostensibly for the warmer climate.
The girls want to run away together to America. They plot together the murder of Pauline’s mother, whom they perceive as the main obstacle to their happiness. Juliet is nervous, but Pauline says she feels extremely excited about the murder. Honora, Pauline and Juliet arrive at Victoria Park. They have snacks at a teahouse, and then venture down a track where the girls ambush Honora and attack her using a brick in a stocking. While she is examining a pink stone that the girls planted on the track, they bludgeon her to death, smashing her head to pulp with their improvised blackjack.
Cast
Production
Fran Walsh suggested to Peter Jackson (who was famous for horror-comedy films at the time) 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.[3]
Fran 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.[3] 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 newpaper 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, work 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. All of Pauline's voiceovers are excerpts from her journal entries.
Casting
The role of Pauline was cast after Fran 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.[4] The girls were both absorbed by their role so much that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website. The filming of the murder scene had an impact on them as the viewing of the film has to some viewers.
Locations
A scene right before the murder at Victoria Park, which was filmed in almost the exact location the murder actually occurred
The entire film was filmed on location in Christchurch city in the South Island of New Zealand. 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."[3]
Almost all locations used for filming were the genuine locations where the events occurred. The tea shop where Honora Parker ate her last meal was knocked down a few days after the shoot ended. According to director Peter Jackson, when they got to the location of the murder on the dirt path, it was eerily quiet; the birds stopped singing, and it didn't seem right so they moved along a couple of hundred yards.
Special effects
The special effects in the film were handled by the then newly-created Weta Digital. 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 "Orson Welles" sequences.
Release
Heavenly Creatures was not a huge box office success, but performed admirably in various countries, including the United States where it grossed a total of $3 million during its limited run in 57 theaters.
Heavenly Creatures has garnered critical praise, and was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay. It featured in a number of international film festivals, and received very favourable reviews worldwide,[citation needed] including making top ten of the year lists in Time, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New Zealand Herald.
The success of Heavenly Creatures won Peter Jackson attention from American company Miramax, who promoted the film vigorously in America and signed him to a first look deal.
The film's international release coincided with members of the New Zealand media tracking down the real-life Juliet Hulme, who now wrote murder mysteries in Scotland under the name Anne Perry. Up until this point, Jackson had been careful in interviews not to reveal this information, although he argued that her identity had already been common knowledge in some New Zealand theatrical circles as early as 1992. This turn of events saw the expression of some contrasting views between Jackson, Walsh and Hulme in interviews, about the film's fidelity to what had occurred (although Hulme admitted she had not seen the film, and had no desire to.)
In 1996, the movie was released on videocassette, but has since gone out of print. Over the past few years, the film has received DVD releases in Region 1, Region 2 and Region 4 formats.
References
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