History YMMV / HeavenlyCreatures

* HeroOfAnotherStory:

* HollywoodPudgy: Pauline is portrayed as rather stocky, particularly compared to tall, slim Juliet, but in a scene where both girls strip to their underwear, her figure's entirely average. It's also notable that in a later scene where her mother worries that Pauline's "lost a lot of weight," she appears to be the same size as she was before. In fact, Melanie Lynskey was cast based on her real-life resemblance to Pauline, who was seen as [[RealWomenHaveCurves attractive and curvy]] at school.

* HollywoodPudgy: Pauline is portrayed as rather stocky, particularly compared to tall, slim Juliet, but in a scene where both girls strip to their underwear, her figure's entirely average. (It's also notable that in a later scene where her mother worries that Pauline's "lost a lot of weight," she appears to be the same size as she was before.)

** Prof. Hulme. It's never even hinted at what he's being fired for, but you can't help feeling sorry for him during the scene when he's crying in his study.[[note]]A deleted scene shows Dr. Hulme being dragged up before the university board for dismissal. In Real Life, he was "asked to leave" on the excuse that his professional credentials were too good for Christchurch University and that the school was holding him back. In fact, Hulme was far too progressive for the conservative university, he was personally disliked by his peers, and the scandal of Hilda moving her lover into the family home reflected negatively on the school.[[/note]] It's also clear he's not okay with the lover his wife dragged to their home.

* WhatAnIdiot: Pauline, honey, if you're going to commit murder... ''don't write about it in your diary''.

** While not shown in the film, the impact on Herbert Reiper was devastating: not only did his own daughter murder his beloved common-law wife, but his entire past (twenty years prior, he had abandoned a previous wife and family to marry Honorah) was dragged through the papers and the courts. As the family home was in Honorah's name, and her will left the house to Pauline, Herbert subsequently had another legal battle just to keep a roof over his head. The legal fees nearly bankrupted him, and he lived in near-poverty for many years afterwards. One also imagines the heartbreak of explaining to his intellectually disabled youngest daughter why her mother and sister would no longer be visiting her.

* TheWoobie: Prof. Hulme. It's never even hinted at what he's being fired for, but you can't help feeling sorry for him during the scene when he's crying in his study. It's also clear he's not okay with the lover his wife dragged to their home.

* LesYay: How the film and some viewers interpret the girls' friendship. After being outed as Juliet, Anne Perry stated this wasn't true, and the filmmakers had completely misunderstood Pauline's diary entries that are portrayed as suggesting it.[[note]]You can see Hilary Nathan's art and judge for yourself. [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/29018755@N04/albums/72157622146971428 This mural was found in Hilary's home]] when she sold it in 2009.[[/note]] According to the actresses, however, Jackson instructed them to play the girls as two devoted friends who were role-playing love scenes with their favorite film stars.

* SoundtrackDissonance: The film closes with a cut to black over Pauline's agonized scream -- then Mario Lanza's recording of "You'll Never Walk Alone," a moving and heartbreaking ballad from ''Theatre/{{Carousel}}'', playing over an intertitle epilogue about the girls' trial, conviction and imprisonment -- ''It was a condition of their release that they never meet again.'' Despite everything, this is both chilling and a TearJerker for many viewers.

** The murder scene at the end of the film. Closing your eyes does absolutely no good and may even make it ''worse.'' The ''noise'' the actress playing Honora makes as Pauline first hits her with the brick. It's stomach turning how realistic and painful it sounds. Not to mention the fact that this was toned down compared to how reports suggest it was in real life (or the movie cuts it off before that point).

* LesYay: How the film and some viewers interpret the girls' friendship. After being outed as Juliet, Anne Perry stated this wasn't true, and the filmmakers had completely misunderstood Pauline's diary entries that are portrayed as suggesting it. According to the actresses, however, Jackson instructed them to play the girls as two devoted friends who were role-playing love scenes with their favorite film stars.

* JerkassWoobie: The girls themselves, especially Juliet when she's sick with tuberculosis and her parents abandon her in hospital anyway, despite promising her they'd never leave her again after her being bedridden for most of her childhood. Of course, she aids and abets murder, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone but she and Pauline clearly are horrified by this.]] It is suggested that the very reason the girls became so obsessed with each other and desperate to maintain their friendship is because of their mutually lonely childhoods.
** Pauline's mother. Yes, she's strict, but she is dealing with a rebellious, unstable daughter in an unhealthy codependent relationship with another unstable girl.
*** Pauline's friends have revealed that Honorah was not nearly as sympathetic as portrayed.
* LargeHam: Kate Winslet really [[{{ChewingTheScenery}} chews the scenery]] in most of her scenes.
* LesYay: How the film interprets the girls' friendship. After being outed as Juliet, Anne Perry stated this wasn't true, and the filmmakers had completely misunderstood Pauline's diary entries that are portrayed as suggesting it. According to the actresses, however, Jackson instructed them to play the girls as two devoted friends who were roleplaying love scenes with their favorite film stars.

** The people of Borovnia, ''giant, unpainted plasticine figures that talk, sing, dance, and make love.''
*** Their mouths are filled in with clay too, and their eyes. It makes them look very creepy and flat.

** The murder scene at the end of the film. Closing your eyes does absolutely no good and may even make it ''worse.''
*** Dear God, the ''noise'' the actress playing Honora makes as [[spoiler:Pauline first hits her with the brick.]] It's stomach turning how realistic and painful it sounds. Not to mention the fact that this was toned down compared to how reports suggest it was in real life (or the movie cuts it off before that point).

** On a completely different level of dissonance, many ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' fans have indelibly associated this song with a scene in that series where the song is PlayedForLaughs, to the point that it almost feels the soundtrack's taking the piss on the seriousness of the epilogue.

* TheWoobie: It's kind of hard not to feel sorry for the boarder in Pauline's house, John. While he sneaks into her room with the obvious intent of sleeping with her, she later sneaks out to see him, and his first question after they have sex is 'I didn't hurt you, did I?' The movie plays it as her realising she's not in love with him, especially not compared with how she feels about Juliet, so she promptly ditches him without a goodbye. He's then shown bicycling after her while she's on a bus, yelling that he still loves her.
** Hugely YMMV, since he tries to sleep with Pauline when she's ''fourteen''[[note]]In reality Pauline was fifteen at this time.[[/note]] and he basically guilt-trips her to let him stay in her bed, which gets Pauline a SlutShaming from her parents when discovered -- and they take away her right to sleep in the shack, her sanctuary of privacy. Then he starts insisting that he's in love with her despite really knowing nothing about her, and does this ''screaming'' from a bicycle while Pauline in the train doesn't even notice as she and Juliet are completely absorbed in each other.
** Prof. Hulme. It's never even hinted at what he's being fired for, but you can't help feeling sorry for him during the scene when he's crying in his study.
*** He'd been caught in one of his numerous dalliances with his young female students.