Heavenly Creatures

This movie caught my attention for the description -- two teenage girls develop a friendship that becomes obsessive and dangerously devolves when their parents express their concerns -- and for the actors involved. I'm convinced Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynssky can't turn in a bad performance, so to see them paired together, in what is both their first movie, and in a psychological thriller? CHECK, CHECK, AND MORE CHECK. And then I noticed, as the credits rolled, that Peter Jackson directed it. That's not a knock -- I love the LOTR movies, and I will die on the hill that The Frighteners is an under-appreciated horror-comedy classic -- but he has a distinct style, especially before LOTR. I was curious to see how that style would translate to this gruesome and heartbreaking true-story. To my utter lack of surprise, the extraordinary talents of Winslet and Lynskey are obvious from the first frame. Lynskey plays Pauline, a dour, withdrawn 14-15 year old who resents her family for a two-year-old inpatient rehabilitation for an illness, and for a home life that leaves her forgotten and feeling like the least important member of the house. Winslet plays Juliet, new to town, and also damaged from a long recuperation from TB where her parents left her in a hospital for five years. Separately, both have developed fantastical imaginations and a bitterness toward how the real world works, and use this imagination to escape from their daily lives. It is as their indulgences in imagination become pervasive in their daily lives (they start calling each other by their fantasy names, sloughing off school, and think they're destined to become movie stars and authors) that their relationship goes from friends to something more concerning, like mutual parasites, and even some form of same-sex attraction (which one of the women, later in life, insists never happened). Friendship and how it can become toxic, dependency, and trauma are major themes of the movie, and Winslet and Lynskey absolutely nail the swirling hurricane of adolescent emotions that make this possible. There is no "leader" between the two; they are each other's support system equally, but they are by no means the same human being. Pauline is more sullen, wearing his angst and depression on her sleeve. Juliet masks hers with a deceptively sunny, outgoing, albeit mischievous disposition. As they open up to one another and the bond forms, their love for each other comes through the screen; they feel like souls that have been looking for one another for years, and are rejoicing in finally finding each other. As their friendship becomes obsessive, their personalities change, and so do the performances; Winslet becomes frantic and desperate, barely holding it together as their parents conspire to keep them apart even as her own parents' relationship comes apart. Meanwhile, Lynskey's low-key resentment becomes malevolent, self-destructive anger and defiance. It is only when they're allowed to see one another that their moods brighten again, albeit more to indulge in the intricately constructed fantasy world they've created to avoid facing their trauma. Their performances, and the movie around them, execute a terrific balance of exuding sympathy for what they're going through and how the world around them isn't equipped to give them the help they need (it's the 1950's, after all), while showing that their relationship is indeed toxic and doing each other more harm than good. It's like a tragic coming-of-age story. Not to slight the rest of the cast, but it is their performances that shine the most here and carry the film. Unfortunately, what I alluded to earlier -- Jackson's pre-LOTR quirkiness as a director -- does do some harm to the movie. Creatures blends a lot of styles, from charming coming-of-age story to whimsical fantasy movie to psychological thriller, and it is all captured very well. The fantasy sequences, with life-sized clay figurines from the pair's stories dancing and getting in swordfights, are beautifully filmed and, while charming, also show the depth of the girls' growing mental health issues. As well as Jackson's direction captures all these flavors, however, I never felt like they went well together. This is a story about mental illness and a friendship that turns poisonous and ends in murder, and we've got scenes that look like they're out of a chlidren's story, and a score that feels more jaunty and Danny Elfman-esque than the situation calls for. For as serious as the subject matter is, especially given where it leads, the movie spends far too much time indulging in whimsical flights of fancy to be taken as seriously as it should. Never mind that these indulgences also detract from giving fuller definition to the lives around the girls that make them who they are; Juliet's life is given more time to develop than Pauline's -- her constant battles with TB, her parents' loveless marriage, and being little more than a trophy daughter -- but it's still the cliffnotes version. Pauline's is given almost no definition; we're told she also faced an illness and a long recovery, but her parents seem loving, and while she's in a busy house and grows up less well-off than Juliet, it doesn't seem like she wants for much. The trauma they want the viewer to think is there isn't shown or even explained, so she just comes off as moody. As I mentioned before, the performances pick up some of the slack and make you believe these girls are going through things, but it would be nice for the movie to back that up with details instead of an imaginary ballroom dance scene in the forest with clay statues. Those diversions into weirdness may underscore their mental state, but it doesn't build tension for the finale. It's like if Bridge To Terabithia ended with the kids becoming Mickey & Mallory Knox from Natural Born Killers. I don't think it ruins the movie. Peter Jackson wanted to tell the story of these two girls and their doomed friendship, not the story of the crime that brought it to an end. For the acting alone, and for the tragic way it all comes undone and their impossible fantasies collapse under the weight of their mutual obsession, it is worth watching. But if you're looking for a more serious examination of the way trauma can metastasize, and how not all relationships are good ones even if those in them think otherwise, this isn't it. This is a well-directed, and insanely well-acted, movie, even if Jackson wasn't the right man to be the director.