Jackson’s wacky style—all swinging wide-angle lenses, melodrama, and grotesques—perfectly matches the child’s point-of-view, and as the two girls fall deeper into each other and their made-up world, less and less of what we see can be called reliable. The movie’s best, saddest scene involves a day trip with the two girls and Pauline’s mother. Pauline and her mum have been fighting intensely and the scene is the kind of reconciliation through shared activity that we all have with our mothers; the older woman tries so hard to mend things and to get along with this friend of her daughter whom she ultimately fears. It’s hard to believe that the chief architect of “Lord of the Rings”—which has the moral complexity of a grade-schooler—could make us love and dread the same characters at the same time. We feel sorry for the inevitable split of Juliet and Pauline, yet we know it’s the best thing for them. We all know the allure of hiding in someone else, of living in daydreams, of interpreting fact via fiction. We come to feel so much for the two girls, even if we are ultimately repelled by their actions.
The movie’s performances are solid all around, especially the two leads, whose love for each other is palpable. If your only exposure to Kate Winslet is “Titanic,” a weak performance in an overrated film, you’re missing out. She has committed herself to being plumper, and therefore more attractive, than so many rail-thin leading ladies, and I really like how her eyebrows and hair are never the same color. She has a certain way of mouthily shouting out mischief while disguising it as sycophancy that no one else on the screen quite has.
Where are they now? “Heavenly Creatures” is based on a real incident that happened in New Zealand. Readers familiar with the actual events will notice that I have been intentionally coy throughout this entire review so as not to divulge too many of the movie’s secrets. One of the girls has become a Mormon and the other a Catholic, although we wonder why they should adopt two of the toughest forms of Christianity when they are so far behind. Pauline is a retired special-needs teacher living in England. As for Juliet, you may know her better by her assumed name of Anne Perry, the same Anne Perry behind several best-selling crime novels. Here’s a good website: www.oocities.org/Hollywood/Studio/2194. But do yourself a favor and save it until after you’ve seen the movie.
Finished April 12th, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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