Heavenly Creatures

In the movie Heavenly Creatures (1994) an important idea is the idea of friendship, love, and obsession. The main example of friendship, love and obsession is shown by the connection between Juliet and Pauline. The girls are adolescent, and adolescents are known to experiment, but this pair oversteps the boundary of ‘a safe friendship’. It may be normal for teenage girls to have some form of a strong friendship at some point of their teenage years, but as said before, the friendship shown here is one formed on obsession, rather than the peaceful want to have and need a friend. We are shown this through the telling of Pauline’s diary.

Teenage girls have always been known to experiment in their quest to find out who they are, and have a solid recognition on the type of person they will become. Except, shown in Heavenly Creatures, the experimenting between the two girls quickly becomes an obsession, that in time has serious consequences for the pair of them. Their obsession leads to things such as when the girls are to be parted for good –when Juliet has to leave- and their plan to run away to the United States falls through, the girls see Pauline’s mother as the main obstacle that will be keeping the two girls apart. Resulting in the murder on Pauline’s mother, Honora. In Pauline’s diary she writes things such as “Anger against Mother boiled up inside me as it is she who is one of the main obstacles in my path. Suddenly a mean of ridding myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die.” Showing that Pauline’s obsession and love for Juliet blurred her view on reality. Pauline never realised that what she was doing to her mother was anything less than inhumane. The only thing that mattered to her was Juliet, nothing more.

Throughout the film we are reminded of the words of Pauline, which bring life and the realistic view into the film. It shows us the way the film is produced isn’t at all over exaggerated and that it portrays the real and jaw dropping...