The Lovely Bones

So, my friend Rox calls me and asks me to go with her to see The Lovely Bones. Why, why, why, WHY did I agree to go see this movie?? It's not that it was bad, but it's every parent's worst nightmare and something you don't ever want to think about happening to your own child.

Directed by Peter Jackson, the film is based on the novel by Alice Sebold. Starring Saoirse Ryan as Susie Salmon, the main character in the story. Also starring Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents, Jack and Abigail, and Stanley Tucci as you've never seen him and will never want to see him again as Susie's murderer, George Harvey.


The film begins with an introduction to Susie and the Salmon household. She comes from a small, tight family with her loving parents, her older sister and younger brother. Susie is interested in photography and wants to be a wildlife photographer when she grows up. The only problem is that she also has a creepy, older neighbour who watches her.


If you've seen the trailers going into this movie, you know she's going to die. The first line in the trailer is "I was 14 years old....when I was murdered." This does not make it any easier to watch, though. The other thing about the trailer is that it is a bit misleading. It makes it seem as though the story is about Susie helping her family solve her murder from the other side and that's not really the case. Susie is in the "in between" place, which means she is not quite in heaven yet, but has already left her earthly body. Susie narrates while she makes her way in the after life and watches over her family and her murderer.


I have to admit that I have not read the book, but from reading the IMDB boards for this film I can tell that fans of the book are NOT happy with this adaptation. I agree with them in the way that the film seems conflicted with itself. One of their gripes is that there's too much CGI flashery to illustrate the afterlife. I agree there and some of it may have been visual metaphors, but I didn't get them. The other criticism is that it watered down the story lines and arcs of the characters who are mourning Susie's death. The scene right before her murder is very uncomfortable to watch and apparently, the book is much more graphic with her brutal rape and murder. In the movie they didn't even hint that she had been brutally raped before being murdered and in a big way, I'm glad that part wasn't graphic. It felt like they tried to balance too many things like the CGI special effects, the grieving family, and Susie's struggle with accepting her death to do a really good job on any one of them. Also, as much as I LOVE Susan Sarandon's sassy, chain smoking, hard drinking Grandma Lynn who comes to help the family after Susie's death, the comic relief her character brought seemed awkward and out of place. It was interesting, but didn't go deep enough to really explore the emotions that all of the parties felt going through their own experiences, but also, the biggest message being that sometimes life isn't fair and there is no justice. How depressing.

More ramblings to come......