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Dom Robinson reviews
Miramax Home Entertainment
- Cert: R
- Cat.no: 17447
- Running time: 109 minutes
- Year: 1994
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 17 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £4.99 (approx)
- Extras: Trailers
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Director:
- Peter Jackson
(Bad Taste, Braindead, Crossing the Line, The Frighteners, Heavenly Creatures, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Lovely Bones, Meet The Feebles)
Producer:
- Jim Booth
Screenplay:
- Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson
Music:
- Peter Dasent
Cast :
- Pauline Rieper: Melanie Lynskey
Juliet Hulme: Kate Winslet
Honora Parker Ripier: Sarah Peirse
Hilda Hulme: Diana Kent
Dr Henry Hulme: Clive Merrison
Herbert Rieper: Simon O’Connor
John: Jed Brophy
Bill Perry: Peter Elliott
Dr Bennett: Gilbert Goldie
Rev Norris: Geoffrey Heath
Wendy: Kirsti Ferry
Jonathan Hulmes: Ben Skjellerup
Bum outside theatre (uncredited): Peter Jackson
Heavenly Creatures tells the story of two teenagers who soon become firm friends, Juliet (Kate Winslet, far-right) and Pauline (Melanie Lynskey, middle), the latter a native of its setting, New Zealand, and the former having come from England – and with a ridiculously posh accent, given that it’s set in 1953.
We learn early on that this is a tale of teenage rebellion, since neither of them get on famously with their parents and given that they’re trying to find their way in the world – as all angry teenagers do – they’ll make mistakes, not many of which their parents will approve of. This includes their weird world in which they refer to each other as what I grasped as Royal members of society, with Pauline as Charles and Juliet as Deborah, and as the latter’s parents run a B&B, they referred to one of the lodgers as Nicholas, even though his real name was John (Jed Brophy).
Before too long, Pauline gets a crush on Juliet which you start to wonder whether it’ll get reciprocated as the latter is the more dominant of the two, but in the meantime they share a love of singer Mario Lanza and have wild imaginations which include a world of unicorns, clay people and lush landscapes. However, while it is brilliantly filmed, it does rather go on a bit, and although I was watching the uncut version (9 mins longer than the original), it still could’ve done with cutting down to 90.
Both leads play well in their roles, and of the parents, the stand-out ones are Sarah Peirse (left in picture above) as Pauline’s rather tired mother, Honora, and the actor playing Juliet’s father, Dr Henry Hulme. Clive Merrison‘s been in so many things that I can’t remember which definitive role was the first one in which I saw him. However, he does play a fairly similar type all the time, so you know what to expect. Great to see him in the role, though.
There’s even a cameo from Peter Jackson outside the theatre early on as a drunk, ‘danced’ by Kate Winslet.
Heavenly Creatures is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic and features some clever camera work, and good CGI when required but the print could do with a bit of improvement as it feels slightly washed out at times. That said, it doesn’t sadly skimp on showing off the fact that Melanie Lynskey has got such hairy arms! Bleah!
The audio has no problems, but then this disc is only presented in Dolby Surround, as it was filmed. There’s never been a Region 2 DVD release for this movie either, so don’t expect anything else out there.
This DVD features hardly any extras. Just a trailer for the film itself (running for 2:03, and in 4:3), as well as trailers for Shipping News, Pinero, Backflash, Teaching Mrs Tingle and one for Miramax Year of Gold, which is just a load of promo tripe. It makes it worse that all these trailers are in 4:3. Why?
There are English subtitles on this disc, which contains a static and silent menu, but they’re too high up the picture. They don’t have to be stuck right in the bottom black bars on all films of this ratio, they don’t have to be stuck almost near the middle of the picture either.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.