Stars: Susan Lynch, Rachel Weisz, Iain Glen, Maurice Roeves, Tom Mannion, Robin Laing, Alex Norton

Director: Bill Eagles

Summary: Dorothy and Petula's lives will never be the same again after they are thrown together by fate...

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Firmly in the spirit of the late 90s wave of British crime films, Beautiful Creaturesstars Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch as two young Glasgow women united against their brutally abusive boyfriends. With a corpse in the bathroom, a golf bag with a secret and seedy detective on their trail Dorothy (Lynch) and Petula (Weisz) hatch an ill-conceived fake kidnapping as their passport from an impossible situation. The film is an entertaining 84 minutes, but though there are several suspense scenes and some queasily amusing black comedy the TV style direction and generic plot fail to deliver any originality. First time feature director Bill Eagles concentrates on winning strong performances from an excellent cast and referencing The Wizard of Oz(1939) (Dorothy has a dog called Pluto, rather than Toto), Wild at Heart(2000) (watch Pluto and those fingers). Added to these are references to Thelma and Louise(1991), Shallow Grave(1994), Butterfly Kiss(1995), Bound(1996), and the film its title echoes, Heavenly Creatures(1994). Considering the graphic violence against women this would have been a stronger, more honest film had it taken itself seriously. As it is, the fashionable yet often inappropriate humour prevents Beautiful Creaturesmaking any serious point about women's reaction to male violence, the finale degenerating into routine feel-good exploitation.

On the DVD: This is a bare-bones release with brief on-screen production notes, cast and crew credits, a page about Universal's DVD email newsletter and a static menu. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound locks most of the audio to the centre speaker, though there's plenty of dog-barking all around the room. The anamorphically enhanced 1.77-1 transfer clearly cuts off part of the original image at both sides of the screen and is often, especially in the many night scenes, far grainier than one would expect from a feature film released in the year 2000. --Gary S Dalkin

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	DVD Newsletter, Cast And Filmmakers Biographies, Production Notes, Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2000
Release Date:	April 10, 2003
Runtime:	85 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	820 058 3
Keywords:	Creatures, Comedy, Beautiful, General, Wide, Screen
Genre:	Comedy