Movies at the Library: ‘Heavenly Creatures’ — Kate Winslet’s debut

New Zealand is not often the setting for a brilliant, complex film but it is just that for the 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 1 showing of Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures” in the winter Movies at the Library series. It is another film included in the anthology, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die,” which calls it “a gleefully free interpretation of a 1952 murder case.”

Kate Winslet makes her film debut as Juliet, a neglected English “little rich girl” whose devoted friendship with Pauline, a shy, dowdy school chum, alarms Pauline’s parents. They view the relationship as dangerously obsessive and they try to separate the two girls. The attempt backfires, bringing the teenagers closer as they retreat into a dream world that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Perhaps a prequel to the masterful work of “Lord of the Rings,” the fantasy sequences are both beautiful and funny.

Very well acted, Melanie Lynskey is Winslet’s teenage friend, and the cast is rounded out by Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison and Simon O’Connor. Frances Walsh collaborated on the screenplay, and she and Mr. Jackson were nominated for an Oscar for their work. Unknown to Mr. Jackson at the time, the real-life Juliet Hulme became a best-selling author of murder mysteries under the pseudonym Anne Perry.

Mr. Jackson in 1994, as director and writer, shows his mastery of balancing good and evil, innocence and sin, comedy and drama before “Lord of the Rings.” He has created a tough-minded but enormously sympathetic film. It is not as much an examination of lesbian teen hysteria as it is an indictment of adult bourgeois hysteria about sexuality of any kind in the 1950s.

This is not a well-known movie and it’s a pity because, once seen, it is unforgettable. Jackson’s work and that of his young stars makes for an extremely satisfying film experience, a riveting 99 minutes.

So join the movie lovers on the lower level of the library for this fascinating recreation.