Kate Winslet was awarded an Empire Award and a London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year for her performance. The Washington Post writer Desson Thomson commented: "As Juliet, Winslet is a bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she’s in. She's offset perfectly by Lynskey, whose quietly smoldering Pauline completes the delicate, dangerous partnership." Speaking about her experience on a film set as an absolute beginner, Kate Winslet noted: "With Heavenly Creatures, all I knew I had to do was completely become that person. In a way it was quite nice doing [the film] and not knowing a bloody thing."
Kate Winslet next film role was in the 2003 drama The Life of David Gale, in which Kate Winslet played an ambitious journalist who interviews a death-sentenced professor (Kevin Spacey) in his final weeks before execution. The film underperformed at international box offices, garnering the half of its $50,000,000 budget only and generated mostly critical reviews, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it a "silly movie."
