cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Its poised period beauty and eerie, dreamlike atmosphere turn adolescent longing and repression into an accumulating sense of menace, much like the unsettling collision of innocence and obsession in Heavenly Creatures.
02
Why this pick
A stylised 1960s school drama where a fiercely charged friendship, bodily unease and grief blur into something uncanny and destabilising.
03
Why this pick
Its secluded girls’ school setting, lush period surfaces and escalating devotion examine how idealisation and jealousy can curdle into danger.
04
Why this pick
This haunting, fairy-tale-like boarding-school vision matches the film’s tactile fantasy and ominous coming-of-age mood, favouring atmosphere and suggestion over explanation.
05
Why this pick
Jane Campion’s boldly artificial imagery and darkly comic family dysfunction offer a similarly vivid portrait of emotional extremity breaking through respectable domestic surfaces.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
In 1952 Christchurch, New Zealand, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family, Pauline Parker, befriends the more affluent English 13-year-old Juliet Hulme when Juliet transfers to Pauline's school. They bond over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, and over time develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty. Together they paint, write stories, make Plasticine figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and eventually made into films in Hollywood. Over time it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Pauline's relationship with her mother Honora becomes increasingly hostile and the two fight constantly. This angry atmosphere is in contrast to the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies. Certain actors and musicians are "saints" in this afterlife.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Pauline Parker Rieper
Juliet Hulme
Honorah Parker Rieper
John
Bill Perry
Dr. Bennett
Laurie
Professor
