Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey star in Peter Jackson's fantasy crime drama based on real events that took place in the 1950s. Dowdy teenager Pauline Parker (Lynskey)'s mundane existence in a New Zealand backwater is enlivened by the arrival of Juliet Hulme (Winslet), a sophisticated, precocious English girl. They create a fantasy world for themselves, but, as their relationship becomes an unnaturally close one, they begin to lay plans for a real-life murder.