This thoroughly original must-see introduced Kate Winslet to the world. She plays a posh new girl who enters Christchurch Girls High School in a modest New Zealand town. There she befriends Pauline (later known as Paul), a brooding, defiant loner who can shoot the most disturbing drop-dead looks. On the sur­face their friendship seems like a mishap — Juliet is polished and confident, Pauline more sulking and gawky. But their vivid imagina­tions and free spirits unite them in a pro­found relationship. They begin cowriting a fantastical medieval story, focused on the fic­tional characters Charles and Deborah. Reality begins to weave in and out, and the girls use the fictional world as an outlet for expressing their deepening attraction.

When Juliet con­ tracts TB and they are forced apart, they cor­respond through letters, impersonating the loving characters in their heavenly world. Both sets of parents become concerned that the friendship is becoming "unwholesome," and they attempt to separate the girls. This effort only increases their mutual depend­ence and leads them to a grisly and drastic conclusion. What was once a creative and sat­isfying relationship becomes neurotic and confusing with the pressures of parental control.