Heavenly Creatures (1994) on Netflix
R19941h 49mBiographyCrimeDrama
In 1950s Christchurch, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme meet at school and become inseparable, inventing a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. Their families grow uneasy about the friendship.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.2/1070,306 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
Juliet Hulme, thirteen and English, arrives at a Christchurch school in 1952 and falls in with Pauline Parker, a year older and from a working-class home. Both spent stretches of childhood ill and in hospitals, and they quickly become constant companions. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken manner and beauty, and she prefers the Hulme household, where she feels accepted, to the home she shares with her mother, Honora, whom she fights with constantly. The pair paint and write, make figurines, and invent Borovnia, the kingdom where their adventure novels are set, which they hope to publish and see made into Hollywood films. Juliet also tells Pauline about the Fourth World, a heaven with no Christians in it, where music and art are prized.
Cast
- Gilbert Goldieas Dr. Bennett
- Geoffrey Heathas Rev. Norris
- Kirsti Ferryas Wendy
- Ben Skjellerupas Jonathan Hulme
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To bring a more humane version of events to the screen, Jackson and Walsh traced and interviewed seventeen of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme's former classmates and teachers from Christchurch Girls' High School, spoke to neighbors, police officers, lawyers and psychologists, and read Pauline's diary of daily entries documenting the friendship.
- Walsh had been interested in the case since her early childhood. She first came across it in the late Sixties, when she was ten years old and The Sunday Times devoted two whole pages to the story, and was struck by the description of the dark and mysterious friendship between the two girls.
- Kate Winslet was among 175 girls to audition for the film and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part.
- The visual effects were handled by the then newly created Weta Digital, where Richard Taylor and his team constructed more than 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the Borovnian crowds, the plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world.
- As of 2026 the film has been notably absent from streaming and digital platforms, likely because it was distributed by Miramax, then co-owned by Harvey Weinstein, whose films have become entangled in legal rights issues since his sexual assault charges and convictions.
- Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet were both so absorbed by their roles that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website.
SPOILER
A textual epilogue reveals that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder, sentenced to five years in prison as they were too young to face the death penalty, and released separately in 1959 on the condition that they never see each other again.
