Kate Winslet’s dark acting debut has become a sapphic cult classic

Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey made queer cinema history as Hollywood ingenues (Picture: THA/REX/Shutterstock)

In 1994, three rising talents, Peter Jackson, Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet, joined forces to create a lesbian cinematic staple, Heavenly Creatures. 

It was only the Lord of The Rings filmmaker’s fourth full-length project and by far his most high profile. It’s the first credit on Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey’s IMDb.

And for Titanic actor Kate, it was her first ever named film role – with her biggest acting gig to this point only a guest role on BBC’s Casualty. 

Over three decades later, they have collectively secured four Academy Awards, seven Emmy nominations and more high-profile projects than can feasibly be listed here, including The Last of Us, The Lovely Bones and Revolutionary Road – to name a few. 

But it all started there, in 1994, with Heavenly Creatures – a dark and disturbing tale of obsession and matricide that has resonated with queer women across the years. 

The movie, based on one of New Zealand’s most high-profile murder cases from the 1950s, follows school students Juliet (Kate) and Pauline aka Paul (Melanie) who develop a deep bond as they conjure up a fantastical universe known as the Fourth World into which they escape. 

Heavenly Creatures, directed by Peter Jackson, traces the relationship between two young women – and the disturbing turn it takes (Picture: THA/REX/Shutterstock)

However, this veers into the deranged by the end as they resort to the violent, and bloody, murder of Paul’s mum to ensure they are not forcibly separated.

I first came across this movie when I was a similar age to Juliet and Paul, a teen schoolgirl figuring myself out. 

At the time I found Juliet and Paul’s connection for most of the movie fascinating with a ring of familiarity I wasn’t ready to investigate. After all, I felt a similar level of attachment to some of the friends in my life. Albeit, none that moved me to behave in such extreme ways. 

The slightly out-of-the-norm fixation you develop for a friend that doesn’t fit traditional has been a rite of passage for so many of my LGBTQ+ friends trying to understand ourselves in our youth. 

It’s seen in the way Paul immediately starts listening to singer Mario Lanza as soon as Juliet mentions a passing interest. 

In the early part of the film, the dynamic between Paul and Juliet clearly resonates with young queer women (Picture: Miramax/Everett/REX/Shutterstock)

The casual intimacy reserved only for each other, the outcasts who have found a kindred spirit in each other, the jealousy when one of you has a boy’s attention.

Soon enough, however, I forgot about it as life continued.

It was only a few years later when I was a lot clearer about my own identity as a queer woman that I revisited the movie after seeing it regularly crop up in recommendation lists and within discourse around the history of lesbian cinema.

Re-watching it, I understood why I resonated so deeply with that initial connection Juliet and Paul developed. It’s acknowledged in the film itself when Paul is sent to a child psychologist to stop her ‘developing in a wayward fashion’ due to her attachment to Juliet.

There are so many moments peppered through the movie that capture the essence of confusion and rebellion that so many women undergo during puberty when misogyny becomes a tangible threat that ultimately haunts us for the rest of our lives.

The aftermath of the real-life case extensively reported on the girls’ sexuality (Picture: Wingnut/Fontana/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

From Paul fantasising about murdering the bigoted doctor attempting conversion therapy on her, to the deep melancholy Paul falls into when criticised by adults in her life, to the outright rejection of men by both girls who have found fulfilment in each other. 

And, much like many of the films that have become revered by the LGBTQ+ community over the years, it subverts and delves into the extreme. 

The insanity with which the expectations of society can drive you to.

This story has a truly tragic, and horrifying ending, evocatively captured by the actors in the final scene as they fatally attack Paul’s mother Honorah. The blood-curdling sequence leaves an unsettling imprint on you. The anguished cries of the mother, the frenzied shrieks of the girls, bathed in blood. 

The movie’s legacy is controversial. Peter took certain creative liberties with the dynamic between Paul and Juliet in the movie – and in real life, Juliet (later known as the late crime novelist Anne Perry) denied that she and Paul were lesbians in a 2006 statement. 

It remains a classic for LGBTQ+ audiences to this day (Picture: THA/REX/Shutterstock)

Peter has very much left it up to the audience to interpret the relationship as they see fit, saying in a 2007 interview: ‘The relationship was for the most part a rich and rewarding one, and we tried to honour that in our film. Our intention was to make a film about an intense relationship that went terribly wrong.’

As with most movies based on true stories, real and fiction are blurred together to conjure the most enticing story. Especially in the case of Heavenly Creatures, the aftermath of the actual crime inextricably linked the girls’ relationship with homosexuality (at the time considered a mental illness). 

So it was almost inevitable it would become a theme of the adaptation. 

Ultimately, Heavenly Creatures remains one of the most powerful projects our three Hollywood icons have been a part of and for good reason. The story,relationships and true crime case will stay with you long after the credits start rolling. 

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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