Rating: 
Summary: Dark and powerful film about deep true love
Review: When I heard Peter Jackson would be helming The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I knew it was in good hands, and that's based only on his work on HEAVENLY CREATURES. Jackson and Walsh was robbed of the Best Original Screenplay in 1995, the *only* Oscar nod this wonderful movie received.HEAVENLY CREATURES was my favorite film of 1994. At the time, the "hype" was about the girls' "homosexuality". This completely missed the point. HEAVENLY CREATURES takes the true life story of murder and turns it into an engrossing and exasperating portrait of deep true love, love that defies all, love that shifts the world around you, love that most "lovers" never achieve. Despite the deadly outcome, one is envious of the love between these two girls. It is love that is exhuberant and defiant. The kind of love one can only dream to experience once in a lifetime. The imaginary world of Pauline and Juliet is beautifully realized. The use of special effects is subtle and delightful, a true embedding of FX in the service of story and not because it "looks cool". Since we know what the ultimate outcome is from the very beginning, the film doesn't play an "ah-ha". Instead it is all about showing us what is within the minds of these two girls and the relentless approach of the inevitable that drives the movie. To echo what another reviewer said, HEAVENLY CREATURES is one of the few films that really stuck with me. Driving home in the dark, I kept muttering to myself 'Oh my god...' I was emotionally drained for several days afterward.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, but outstanding film...
Review: When I watched this film first time, I had a very unpleasant feeling. Because of some scenes such as matricide and homosexual love, it was disturbing. However, as I watched this film again, I realized that I could see some things that I did not see at the first time. I began to see thing that are technical aspects of the film and disagreeable situations. In conclusion, I felt that this work is quite well made film. This work treats shocking materials but as this materials connect to fantasy of two girls in the middle of the film, it tone down intensity of the shocking. The notable features of this work are fantasy of two girls, and the beautiful music, which links girls¡¯ s fantasy. Two girls like to hear Mario Lanza¡¯s song, and then they became to fall into their fantasy world. They gradually fell into the fantasy, so they could not distinguish between the reality and the fantasy and they began to look away their real life. Their friendship became to change into delicate feeling like a homosexual love. In this film, there is no direct expression about it, but I could feel it. After all, relationship of them made brutally murder of Pauline¡¯s mother. This is the most impact part of the film. by the way, the director Peter Jackson made it not particularly impact. He showed it step by step to explain why they committed a murder. This film is related to many genres such as love, fantasy, horror and psychodrama. All characters are described delicately to be shown shift of their emotion. This film is different from previous works of Peter Jackson, as it talked about reality. Pauline and Juliet made an imaginary kingdom and various characters. They thought that their fantasy is more important than real life. Their fantasy became to change reality, it was just not a story and writings. Then their fantasy was completed in their dream. They could come true everything what they want in dream. Peter Jackson expressed their ¡°dream¡± in this film. He described what they dream and indecent affairs that they did to realize their dream in real life. However, the boundary between the real life and the fantasy is obscure. The actual and the dream do not turn their back, they grasp their hand. Therefore, this work is one of the films, which appear his specific feature, fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Film of the 90's
Review: A unique masterpiece, which infuses ingenious camera techniques, solid acting, and a well-adapted script. Stars Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their film debuts. Both show promise and this film is more Lynskey's than Winslet's, but Lynskey has yet to become a household name (she will sooner or later). This film is based on the most celebrated trial in placid New Zealand, the Parker-Hulme case, which concerned the girls' murder of one of their mothers in the 1950's. What's intriguing about it is that one of the girls (Hulme) turns out to be the celebrated mystery writer, Anne Perry. Winslet plays Juliet Hulme, an English debutante who moves to Christchurch, New Zealand when her father becomes the Rector of the town's college. As a child she suffered from tuberculosis and like the stereotypical upper-crust English, her parents neglected her by abandoning her in the Caribbean. She strikes up a friendship with the class wallflower, Pauline Parker, a girl of a lower socio-economic background, who also suffered from a childhood illness and felt outcast. They soon become best friends and pursue their interests in writing stories and listening to opera to escape their mundane surroundings. Scarily, their imagination takes over and they lose touch with reality. Their emotional dependence on each other frightens their parents, who fear their daughters have developed homosexual feelings for each other. As a solution, they attempt to separate the girls. Juliet is to live in South Africa with her relatives and Pauline is not granted a passport. The girls view Pauline's mother (Sarah Peirse) as the main obstacle of staying together. They hatch a plan to kill her and make it look like an accident. The director, Peter Jackson, presents the story from the girls' perspective. The viewer is sucked into their visually rich fantasy-world, and one sympathizes with their plight. One understands the girls' disillusionment with their parents, when Juliet discovers her mother (Diana Kent) is having an affair with a married man. Pauline's parents, it is discovered during the trial, were never married. In fact, her father was still legally married to his first wife. Jackson, who understandably was the perfect director to direct Lord of the Rings, utilizes clay animation, timely editing and angular use of the camera. And most important of all is the script, based mostly on Pauline Parker's diaries written during the two year period leading up to the horrifying crime. The result is the most original film in decades. FYI, the girls were released when they turned 21 years old on condition that they never meet. Perry, who took her stepfather's surname, her stepfather being the man her mother was having an affair with, currently resides in Scotland. Surprisingly and coincidentally, so does Parker, although they have yet to meet again. They both are doing what they dreamed of when they met-Perry writing books and Parker riding horses (she runs a horseback riding academy). Perry, who lived in the US for a number is years, is a devout Mormon and Parker is a devout Catholic. They both eschewed religion as teenagers.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT WHAT I EXPECTED
Review: I saw all the 5 star reviews and thought I would check it out.I really don't understand what was so great about this movie.It wasn't suspenseful at all,it was too slow paced,it seemed to be half fantasy and half reality.It just seemed to go off in all different directions.I was sitting there thinking to myself..." What am I watching here?" A wasted 2 hours
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, beautiful, and unique
Review: Heavenly Creatures is one of the best movies of the '90s, especially for something based on a real life story. It stars Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Melanie Lynskey (Ever After) as best friends who end up killing one of the girls' mothers. It starts out with Melanie's character, the weird girl, who loves opera and worships a certain opera singer. She ends up flirting with and sleeping with a man who stayed in her parents' boarding house. She meets the new girl (played by Kate) and they realize that they both lead similar lives. Both feel ignored by their parents. Both were very sick as children. Both feel kind of empty. Both love opera. Their friendship begins to blossom and under it, a forbidden love. After Mel's character is diagnosed by a psychologist as a homosexual (this was from the 50s), her parents forbade her from seeing Kate's character for a while. The two got back together and began to plot the murder of the mother of Mel's character. At a very unsuspecting moment (for the mom), the two girls strike. They thought that her death would allow them to be together forever, but it didn't. The police found out what they had done (from a diary) and they were arrested. They were both found guilty and sentenced. One condition of their paroles--they could never see each other again. Now, they lead somewhat normal lives as a writer (Kate's character) and, I believe, the other works with horses. Anyways...this movie is a definite must-see!
Rating:
Summary: A Heavenly Treasure!
Review: This movie was the best! Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey were excellent as two bestfriends who commit matricide so they can stay with one another. The script is brillant,as well as the visual effects. See this movie, you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Believe the reviews - It's a masterpiece
Review: I first saw "Heavenly Creatures" on VHS a couple of weeks ago. I was absolutely blown away. It was deeper than the Pacific ocean and had so many intriguing layers, levels and textures. I just couldn't get the story out of my head for days afterwards. I have since purchased the video and watched it several times. It does not lose its power to delight, confound, amuse, shock and upset. Yet it is so exquisitely tasteful and empathetic of its subject - never exploitative or gratuitous. The acting is outstanding, particularly Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet and Sarah Pierse. They are ably assisted by a magnificent script and virtuoso direction. The presentation is so audacious, so imaginitive, it borders on genius. Respect due to Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh and the rest of the team. Most reviews here (90%) give this film a full 5 stars. I have to agree. "Heavenly Creatures" is an incredibly good film. I'm talking a first-rate classic here. And I'm not generally given to using superlatives! I'm kicking myself for missing its theatrical release, and the fact that it's taken over six years for me to see it for the first time. 90% topscoring reviews speaks for itself. I strongly recommend that you buy this wonderful film.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow moving but absorbing:
Review: Yes, I found this movie, slow moving. But after all, there are many movies that are slow. Two teen girls,...as they explore there world, they get caught up with each other, and because of family pressures. {their sexuality} commit the worse crime there is.
This is a true story, so you have to be careful in viewing the words and contex. I will also add, that I think you may have to view this more then to once to get a true life lesson from those events.
Rating:
Summary: Heavenly Creatures
Review: It's hard to belive the events in this film actually happened! Kate Winslet gives a simply great, and believeable performace in this starange film.
In case you don't know, this is the true story of two girls, Juliet Hume (Kate Winslet) and another girl, I don't recall her name, who engage in a rather, to say the least, strange relationship(with each other). They create a rather complex fantasy world, which in their dreams, and in their minds they start to inhabit. They become so drunken by this world, they lose all sense of reality, and become, hopelessly inseperable.
There parents, of course, begin to realize this obsession they begin to have with one another, and take measures to keep them apart, which they counteract, of course.
(spoiler) Winslet gives a covincing, and sometimes terrifying, performace, which started her career off to the state it's in today!
Buy this film if you enjoy Kate's work!
Rating:
Summary: FEVERISH
Review: Girls on the verge of or in the throes of puberty are feverish and crazy. I can say this from experience, having once been an adolescent girl. When I see this film, I think back to when I was 13 or 14 and how my best friend and I should have been separated much like the main characters in this film. Girls of this age, particularly intelligent “misfit” girls, entertain themselves in strange ways… creating completely imaginary worlds and elaborate stories about how they inhabit these worlds. They lose themselves in these worlds and succumb to a kind of psychosis. They cannot help it. Everything takes on this feeling of monumental importance and urgency. Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey convey the fervor, the fever, the loss of all reason… perfectly. Winslet is particularly luminous in her role (which is undoubtedly why we have seen her ascend to the heights of film stardom in the years since this stunning debut). Based on the true story of two girls who become friends in school in New Zealand and when kept apart, plot to kill their parents (they “logically” see this as the path to being able to be together), and they do manage to kill one of their mothers. (Spoiler) The film is not only a horrific tale of cold-blooded murder, it is also a glimpse into the sometimes disturbed but nevertheless enchanting world of adolescent girls and some of their… thinking.
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