Heavenly Creatures (M) PRESENTED IN 35MM FILM

Heavenly Creatures (M, 1994) Presented in 35mm Film by The Revival House Perth

In 1950s Christchurch, New Zealand, two teenage girls form an intense, all-consuming friendship that spirals into obsession. Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) are drawn together by shared imagination, creating an elaborate fantasy world called Borovnia populated by clay figures and royal intrigue. Their bond deepens into something their families and society find increasingly alarming—an intimacy so complete that the girls become convinced no one else could ever understand them. When their families attempt to separate them, fearing the relationship has become unhealthy, Pauline and Juliet's shared fantasy world collides catastrophically with reality, culminating in a real-life murder that shocked New Zealand and became one of the country's most notorious criminal cases.

Director Peter Jackson, working before his blockbuster fame, crafts a visually inventive and psychologically unsettling portrait of adolescent friendship curdling into folie à deux. Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet, both making their film debuts, deliver performances of startling intensity and vulnerability, capturing the intoxicating, claustrophobic nature of a friendship that excludes the rest of the world. Jackson's direction blurs the line between the girls' fantasy and reality through inventive visual effects, bringing their imagined kingdom of Borovnia to vivid, unsettling life. The film's true-crime foundation is treated with empathy rather than sensationalism, exploring how isolation, repression, and the desperate need to be understood can transform devotion into something destructive. Based on the real 1954 Parker-Hulme murder case, the film remains a haunting study of obsession, identity, and the dangerous edges of adolescent intimacy.

Original format and audio experience of this film faithfully reproduced by The Revival House. Presented in 35mm film unless noted otherwise.

When: Sunday, August 16th at 6:15PM
Where: The Revival House at the Como Theatre
Rating: M (Medium level violence, Adult themes)