rE NEW YORK ilMES THE LIVING ARTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER. 16, 1994

FILM REVIEW Forbidden Love Turns Two Girls Into Murderers

ByJAJJET MASLIN HEAVENLY CREATURES Wriiien (wiih Frances Walsh) and directed "Next time I write in this diary. by Peicr Jackson; director of photography. Mother will bedead," wrote Pauline Alun Bollinger; editedby Jamie Selkirk; mu Parker, a 15-year-old living in sic by Peter Dasent; production designer. Chriscchurch, New Zealand, in 1952. Grant Major; produced by Jim Booth; re leased by Miramax Films. Running time: 98 "How odd- — yet how pleasing," minutes. This film is rated R. Making good on thai promise, Pau WITH: Melanie Lynskey (Pauline Parker), line and her school friend Juliet Kate Winslet (Juliet Hulme), Sarah Peirse Hulme went ai an outing with Hon- (Honora Parker), DianaKent (HildaHulme), ora Parker, Pauline's mother, and Cllvc Morrison (Henry Hulme) and Simon bludgeoned her to death with a brick 0'Ci;,...o.- (Herbert Rieper). stuffed in a stocking. Just before this fateful stroll in the woods, the three girls hatch their schemes, is the real some had stopped to enjoy tea. place where the girls played and Like Leopold and Loeb, their attests to Mr. Jackson's meticulous American cowiterparts, Pauline and attention to detail. Juliet scandalized their countrymen On a loonier level, Mr. Jackson in ways that have not yet been for ?dim also disguises extras as life-sizeclay gotten. They were smugly superior; figures to flesh out the girls' private they were caught in the grip of illicit mythology (there is even a clay Or passion; they were capable of mur son Welles) and executes tricks like dering an innocent relative for no sending his camera racing through good reason. On top of this, they the interior of a sand castle. Weirdly broke more serious taboos. They ingenious until they become exhaust were genteel schoolgirls who fell in ing, such methods overpower the love with eachother and, goaded by film's humbler figures even more that love, committed a terminally than they have to. The girls' parents unladylike crime. (with Diana Kent auu oarah Peirse What sent them over the edge? fi-rrn Vmei/Miramax Films affecting and well contrasted as Ju Although Pauline's diary became a Melanie Lynskey, left, and Kate Winslet in "Heavenly Creatures." liet's and Pauline's respective moth matter of public record when the ers), but the film would have delved girls went lotrial, it left many unan deeper if it rescued them from two- swered questions. No less arrogantly dimensional caricature. delusional than Leopold and Loeb, characters' excitement. Structured Stylish and eerily compelling be "Heavenly Creatures" reaches Pauline and Juliet had come to in as a chronological account of the fore it overplays its campy excesses, one pinnacle of subjective madness habit a dream world populated by girls' growing friendship, it inter "Heavenly Creatures," which opens when Juliet's garden morphs magi imaginary royalty and teen-age fave jects flights of increasingly wild today in New York and in other cities cally into the "Fourth World" in raves (they shared a huge crush on imagination into their story. Fasci next Wednesday, does have a fever which the girls think they belong, the singer Mario Lanza), who some natingly eccentric at first, the film ish intensity to recommend it. Mr. and another when Pauline is finally times acted as stand-ins for the loses some of its tension as it be Jackson elicits a particularly unset sent to a psychiatrist. "But she's adults in thoir lives. With ebullient comes evident that Mr. Jackson will tling performance from Melanie always been a normal, happy child," imagination, they invented a secret, not see beyond the killers' claustro Lynskey, the sullen-looking newcom her mother insists, in a scene that is mischievous universe open only to phobic point of view. er who comes to life in the presence played as giddy caricature. "Heav "heavenly creatures" like them This story went well beyond the of haughtier, more supercUious Ju enly Creatures" knows what it selves. Pauline used that phrase to film, which ends with a postscript liet (Kate Winslet, another disturb means to deem that kind of com describe Jufei and herself. after the crime. For instance, both ingly effective actress). The film vis- ment reason enough for murder. "Heavenly Creatures" is Peter girls disappeared after serving brief cerally understands why quiet, awk Jackson's effort to explore that uni sentences, released under the condi ward Pauline falls so madly in love "Heavenly Creatures" is rated R verse, mimicking the killers' school tion that they never meet again. And with the more daring Juliet, whose (Under 17 requires accompanying girl daydreams in a whirl of giddy, Juliet recently made international upper-class parents have left her parent or aduU guardian). It in all-consumiig fantasy. Like Oliver headlines when she was revealed to free to indulge in an active fantasy clude.'; brief, disturbing violence and Stone's "Natural Born Killers," it be Anne Perry, a successful writer life. The Hulmes's garden, where the sexual situation.';. enters an iisular, volatile world of of mystery novels. high-hormoie adolescence and cap Aside from questions about the tures its ch»racters' scary detach story's aftermath, "Heavenly Crea ment from teality. In keeping with tures" leaves gaps about the objec its heroines'lhoughis of secret gar tive facts of the crime, since it delib dens and gi^t butterflies, Mr. Jack erately confines itself to a subjective son's film isviriually bloodless, look viewpoint. Thai's surprising, since ing fussily benign. But its exaggerat Mr. Jackson has brought an investi ed sweeinesJ is every bit as chilling gator's zeal to reconstructing this as more farJliar masculine reveries story, basing his screenplay on inter about violence and irrational re views with people who knew lite girls venge. and including Pauline's own obser Mr. Jack^n, whose previous cred vations. The film's actors apparent its ("Bad T^te," "Dead Alive") are ly bear close resemblances to the in the scie?ce-fiction and horror real figures in this famous case, but realm, give.«"Heavenly Creatures" the film's realism doesn't go much a visual extravagance to match its beyond that.