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While watching Heavenly Creatures, we bring ourselves to sympathize with two unlikely heroines, and then they betray our trust by committing an unthinkable crime; by the time the film has ended, we feel as if our emotions have been chewed up and spat back out to the degree where we don't know WHAT to feel anymore. Heavenly Creatures is either the greatest act of manipulation ever put on film or a brilliant masterpiece about the dark side of life: personally, I think it's a little bit of both. Either way, I'm still trying to get my pulse to return to its normal rate. Director Peter Jackson (who before this had only made a number of cheap nasty horror movies -- Bad Taste and Braindead being the most popular --, but later became one of the most talked-about film-makers as a result of his film interpretation of The Lord of the Rings) does some remarkable things with bringing this horrendous true story to the screen: not only is this one of the most amazing motion pictures I've ever viewed, but it is one of the most important films to date. Period. Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet (Kate Winslet) have developed an inseparable friendship whose intimacy is questioned by their strict parents -- Pauline's being the most stern. As their lives (and our sentiments) are suddenly torn apart, they decide to run off together -- but this could mean having to murder someone. I will not go any further in describing the plot (and I fear that I may already have said too much), not because I want it to surprise you, but because this film is so powerful that I would be doing a disservice to it if I tried to describe it in mere words. Written by Jackson and his real-life spouse, Frances Walsh, the screenplay for Heavenly Creatures is nothing short of remarkable (it even garnered the Academy's attention, earning the film's singular nomination). We both hate and love the two main characters, but most of all we just want them to be happy, to which Jackson and Walsh ask us the question, "at what cost?" Their scenes together -- ESPECIALLY the joyous ones -- are drenched with an unbearable amount of foreboding hopelessness that makes the inevitable conclusion even more tense. In her debut film role, Kate Winslet displays much of the potential she fulfilled later on in her career, but Melanie Lynskey (who has only achieved modest success since) deserves an equal amount of praise -- if not more. By the time we're sucked into the story (which doesn't take long), we forget that they're even acting, and our eyes are peeled to the screen with a voyeuristic intensity that is utterly discomforting. Jackson's direction is simply stunning: his visual depiction of the girls' surreal alternate universe is altogether mesmerizing. Heavenly Creatures is both fascinating and repelling in a way reminiscent of David Lynch's Blue Velvet. But after having written all this, I am still brought to the ultimate conclusion that words cannot contain the experience of viewing this film. There are only a few films that were genuinely painful for me to watch (Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men and Kimberly Pierce's Boys Don't Cry among them), but this is certainly such a film, and I would not recommend it to the faint of heart. This is not a movie you enjoy (and if you do, you should seek psychiatric help), but it is one you will never forget; I know I certainly won't.Grade: A+
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