Heavenly Creatures

UPC: 031398146872

Studio: Fox Home Ent. (lgf)

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations, Adult Language, Sexual Situations]

Summary: 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

Category: Drama

Awards: Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Silver Lion – Venice International Film Festival Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Features: Theatrical trailer

Heavenly Creatures

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 12/13/2011

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DHMA null

Runtime: 109 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Rebecca Flint Marx

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

Cast and Crew: Peter Jackson  Actor 
Liz Mullane  Actor 
Elizabeth Moody  Actor 
Ray Henwood  Actor 
Barry Thomson  Actor 
Peter Elliott  Actor 
Peter Jackson  Director 
Peter Jackson  Screenwriter 
Jim Booth  Producer 
Peter Dasent  Composer (Music Score) 
Hanno Huth  Executive Producer 
Frances Walsh  Screenwriter 
Melanie Lynskey  Actor 
Kate Winslet  Actor 
Sarah Peirse  Actor 
Diana Kent  Actor 
Clive Merrison  Actor 
Simon O'Connor  Actor 

Country: New Zealand