History Film / HeavenlyCreatures

---> "My worst fear about all this is that you will find Pauline." – Anne Perry to Robert [=McCrum=], interview in ''The Guardian'', 29 June 1996.

** Probably the most significant bending of reality is the ending's claim that a condition of the girls' release from prison was that they never meet again. While the girls were ordered to be kept in separate prisons and not allowed contact as part of their punishment, there was no condition that they could never see one another after their release. As far as anyone knows, they never met again...but that appears to have been voluntary.

* HowWeGotHere: The film opens with a blood-spattered Pauline and Juliet screaming at passersby for help.

** Probably the most significant bending of reality is the ending's claim that a condition of the girls' release from prison was that they never meet again. While the girls were ordered to be kept in separate prisons and not allowed contact as part of their punishment, there was no condition that they could never see one another after their release. As far as anyone knows, they have never met since...but that appears to be voluntary.

''Heavenly Creatures'' is a 1994 crime drama film directed and co-written by Creator/PeterJackson and starring Creator/KateWinslet and Creator/MelanieLynskey in their film debuts.

---> "My worst fear about all this is that you will find Pauline." – '''Anne Perry''' to Robert [=McCrum=], interview in ''The Guardian'', 29 June 1996.

--> My worst fear about all this is that you will find Pauline. - Anne Perry to Robert [=McCrum=], interview in ''The Guardian'', 29 June 1996.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Juliet's brother Jonty disappears about halfway through the film. His absence is never explained of remarked upon.[[note]]In Real Life, Jonty was away at school during much of this period.[[/note]]

Set in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the early 1950s, the story is {{narrat|or}}ed by [[TeensAreMonsters 14-year-old]] Pauline Rieper (Lynskey) through her diary entries.

* ComicBookFantasyCasting: In-universe, murderous and violent Prince Diello resembles Orson Welles, whom Juliet vocally despises as a ugly, horrid man, and Pauline learns to fear after watching ''Film/TheThirdMan'', though he's clearly an erotic fascination for both of them: when Pauline mounts Juliet, they respectively imagine the other as Diello and Harry Lime.

[[caption-width-right:310:''"'Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel... That two such heavenly creatures are real."'']]

-->''"'Tis indeed a miracle one must feel\\

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/heavenlycreatures_8108.jpg]][[caption-width-right:250:''"'Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel... That two such heavenly creatures are real."'']]

''Heavenly Creatures'' is a 1994 film by Creator/PeterJackson, and most notably the first film of both Creator/KateWinslet and Creator/MelanieLynskey.

Set in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the early 1950s, the story is {{narrat|or}}ed by [[TeensAreMonsters 14-year old]] Pauline Rieper (Lynskey) through her diary entries.

Pauline Rieper is [[AloofDarkHairedGirl a bright, imaginative, but gloomy girl,]] traits that set her apart from both her salt-of-the-earth working-class parents and her run-of-the-mill schoolmates. Enter [[ManicPixieDreamGirl Juliet]] Hulme (Winslet), a NewTransferStudent from England, born to [[TheBeautifulElite a wealthy, glamorous, intellectual family]]--everything that Pauline dreams of for herself.

Bonding over their childhood ailments, their feelings of superiority and loneliness, and their shared [[WorldBuilding imaginary fantasy kingdom]], Pauline and Juliet quickly become inseparable. Both the fantasies and the friendship sustain the girls during a tumultuous year in which Pauline's already [[ToughLove rocky relationship]] with her mother steadily declines, Juliet's [[IncurableCoughOfDeath health issues]] threaten her life, and the Hulmes' marriage teeters on the brink of divorce. With their worlds falling apart around them, Pauline and Juliet seem to withdraw not only from their families, but from reality itself, falling into fantasies in which they escape to [[ImagineSpot The Fourth World]], a PersonalizedAfterlife of "music, art, and pure enjoyment" occupied by their hand-selected "saints" and accessible to only an elite few [[TitleDrop "heavenly creatures"]]--such as themselves.

Alarmed by the changes the intense friendship has wrought on their daughters, the two sets of parents agree that it would be best to separate them, with Pauline's mother appearing to be the ringleader behind the plot. Juliet will be sent to live with relatives in South Africa, and Pauline, unable to obtain a passport without her parents' consent, will be left behind. But on the eve of Juliet's departure, [[{{Matricide}} Pauline comes up with the perfect plan to stay together.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Juliet's brother Jonty disappears about halfway through the film. His absence is never explained or remarked upon.[[note]]In Real Life, Jonty was away at school during much of this period.[[/note]]

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: The murder plot was just as poorly thought out as you'd expect from two teenage girls with [[SmugSnake delusions of grandeur]]. Their plan hinged on the (unbeknownst to them) very unlikely possibility that Honorah would die instantly from a blow to the back of the head. When this doesn't happen, they panic and kill her in such a brutal way that it's virtually impossible for the police to even consider any other hypothesis than murder. Even more egregious is the fact that Pauline wrote extensively about her plans and left the highly incriminating journal in plain sight in her room. The police wastes no time in arresting and charging both of them.

* FeetFirstIntroduction: We are first introduced to the girls with a shot of their running feet [[spoiler: as they flee the murder]]. When the movie proper begins, our fist view of Pauline is her feet as she hops a fence to get to school on time. The camera continues to focus on her hurrying feet, obscuring her face until she's on her way assembly.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Although she is rightfully portrayed as the undeserving victim of a terrible betrayal and murder, Honorah's more unreasonable aspects are toned down for the film.

* ComicBookFantasyCasting: In-universe, murderous and violent Prince Diello resembles Orson Welles, whom Juliet vocally despises as a ugly, horrid man, and Pauline learns to fear after watching ''Film/TheThirdMan'', though he's clearly an erotic fascination for both of them: when Juliet mounts Pauline, they respectively imagine the other as Diello and Harry Lime.