MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

After winning a cult following for several offbeat and darkly witty gore films, New Zealand director Peter Jackson abruptly shifted gears with this stylish, compelling, and ultimately disturbing tale of two teenage girls whose friendship begins to fuel an ultimately fatal obsession. Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) is a student in New Zealand who doesn't much care for her family or her classmates; she's a bit overweight and not especially gracious, but she quickly makes friends with Juliet (Kate Winslet), a pretty girl whose wealthy parents have relocated from England. Pauline and Juliet find they share the same tastes in art, literature, and music (especially the vocal stylings of Mario Lanza), and together they begin to construct an elaborate fantasy world named Borovnia, which exists first in stories and then in models made of clay. The more Pauline and Juliet dream of Borovnia, the more the two find themselves retreating into this fantastical world of art, adventure, and Gothic romance as they slowly drift away from reality. The girls' parents decide that perhaps they're spending too much time together, and try to bring them back into the real world, but this only feeds their continued obsession with Borovnia (and each other) and leads to a desperate and violent bid for freedom. Featuring excellent performances (especially by Kate Winslet) and imaginative production design and special effects, Heavenly Creatures skillfully allows the audience to see Pauline and Juliet both from their own fantastic perspective and how they seem to the rest of the world. Remarkably enough, Heavenly Creatures is based on a true story; in real life, Juliet grew up to become mystery novelist Anne Perry. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Surround
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • • cc Dolby Digital surround sound
    • Widescreen (2.35:1) enhanced for 16x9 televisions
    • Theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1994 (Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh)

• National Board of Review

•     Nominated Best Picture - 1994

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Won Silver Lion - 1994 (Peter Jackson)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Peter Jackson

• Producer:

  Jim Booth

• Screenwriter:

  Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh

• Cinematographer:

  Alun Bollinger, Allen Guilford

• Composer (Music Score):

  Peter Dasent

• Editor:

  Jamie Selkirk

• Production Designer:

  Grant Major

• Art Director:

  Jill Gormack

• Co-producer:

  Peter Jackson

• Executive Producer:

  Hanno Huth

• Costume Designer:

  Ngila Dickson

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Michael Hedges

• Special Effects:

  George Port, Richard Taylor

• First Assistant Director:

  Carolynne Cunningham

• Casting:

  Liz Mullane, Ros Hubbard, John Hubbard

REVIEW:

• Brimming with both feral energy and surprising humanity, Heavenly Creatures was best defined by its director Peter Jackson, who called it "a murder story about love, a murder story with no villains." This idea is reflected in the film's treatment of its "heavenly creatures," two schoolgirls whose consuming fantasy world is much more fulfilling than what the real world offers them: reality, in the end, is the film's true villain, as its intrusion on the girls' fantasy world ultimately brings everything crashing down. As seen by Jackson, a director previously known for such gory gross-out films as Bad Taste and Dead Alive, the girls are intelligent, creative creatures hurtling along on a weird trajectory towards madness; as played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, they are vibrant characters undone as much by their vulnerability as by their destructiveness. Winslet and Lynskey are the film's strongest assets, playing off each other in perfectly nuanced harmony. Where Winslet's Juliet is cocky and brash, Lynskey's Pauline is subdued and glowering; together, they glow with a righteous fire bordering on lunacy. Jackson refuses to condemn or apologize for them, leaving viewers to elicit their own conclusions from the story's parade of horror and beauty. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi