The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones is based on the Book, which was written by Alice Sebold. I was the best-seller in the year 2002, so it was quite well known then. In 2009 it was released to theaters and directed by Peter Jackson. The film did not receive the best reviews from critics though; however, it still made over $43.5 billion. One problem that I had with the film was that the acting was kind of cheesy especially from certain characters. Besides that though, "The Lovely Bones" deserves more than it was made out to be. Overall, it had a very interesting plot that tried to display the different aspects of the book, such as the "in-between". Also the visuals were beautiful and it was packed with a whole bunch of great symbolism throughout the movie. If you haven't read the book, I think you will quite like the movie. However, if you did read the book you might be a little disappointed by the way it is perceived in the movie. Either way though, I recommend you go watch, and find out for yourself.

The movie takes place in 1973, in a small town named Norristown, Pennsylvania. It begins with the main character Susie Salmon (played by Saoirse Ronan), who is a young 14 year old girl who lives a very normal life, and dreams of becoming a photographer. One day when she is at school one of the boys in her class named Ray Singh (played by Rice Ritchie), whom she has a crush on, approaches her and slips a note into her textbook, asking her out. Of course, happier than ever, she says yes, and when they are about to kiss, they are interrupted by a teacher yelling at their classmate, Ruth Conners (played by Carolyn Dando) for drawing what he perceived to be inappropriate pictures. Later on that day, Suzie is dismissed from school, where she follows her daily path home as she normally does. On the way home as she is walking through a cornfield to get to her house, her neighbor, Mr. George Harvey (played by Stanley Tucci), approaches her out of nowhere. He says that he wants to show her an underground fort that he had just built for all the neighborhood kids. Of course, seeing as though she knew him already, she did not think much of it and pursued to go with him. Mr. Harvey leads her down into the fort and shows her around. However, she begins to get become fairly uncomfortable in his presence and manages to elbow him as he grabs her and then runs away. Susie runs through the cornfield and to her neighborhood street where she bumps into her classmate Ruth Conners. She continues to run seeing her dad, screaming for him, but he does not answer. She then goes home and finds Mr. Harvey bathing in a bathtub covered in mud, unable to see her. There she finds her lucky charm bracelet next to the sink which is filled with blood. This is when she breaks down crying, realizing she had never made it out of Mr. Harvey's underground den; he had murdered her and she is now in the "in-between". This is when you die but your spirit has not yet fully accepted your death and wishes to stay here until they are ready to leave their love ones behind. In the "in-between", Susie does everything she can to try and give her father signs of her spirit and help him discover her murderer. The movie progresses quite a lot from here on, becoming very interesting. I won't ruin anymore for you so that you can watch it yourself. Here's a little preview of the movie that you are welcome to watch: "The Lovely Bones". Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoy this one!