This is the film that launched the career of Kate Winslet, who within three years of appearing in this fact-based New Zealand drama was starring in Titanic. It also transformed the fortunes of director Peter Jackson, who went from making ingenious schlock horrors such as Bad Taste and Braindead to directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The real star of this masterly mix of nostalgia, innocence and menace, however, is Melanie Lynskey, who is mesmerising as the matricidal half of the teenage duo who scandalised a nation in the early 1950s. Although Winslet and Lynskey dominate the film, they are splendidly supported by Diana Kent and Clive Merrison as Winslet's parents, and by Sarah Peirse as Lynskey's ill-fated mother.

Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.