Well Worth Watching Movies

The Lovely Bones is a 2009 drama film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a film adaptation of the award-winning and best-selling 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. The film stars Saoirse Ronan in the lead role as Susie Salmon, along with Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, as her parents Jack and Abigail Salmon respectively, in supporting roles.

Jackson and his producer partners acquired the rights independently and developed a script on their own, later selling it to DreamWorks. Principal photography began in October 2007 in New Zealand and Pennsylvania, United States. After DreamWorks left the project, Paramount became the film’s sole distributor. The film’s trailer was released on August 4, 2009, and clips from the movie were shown in July 2009.

Watch Movie – The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones was first released on December 26, 2009 in New Zealand, and then internationally in January 2010. The film’s North American release date was changed multiple times, with a limited release on December 11, 2009, and a wider release on January 15, 2010.
It was released to mainly mixed reviews from critics; the story and its message were generally criticized, with praise mainly aimed at the acting, particularly of Ronan and Stanley Tucci. In the film’s opening weekend, in limited release, it grossed $116,616 despite only having been screened in three theaters, placing it at 30th place on the box office chart. As of Feb. 28, 2010, The Lovely Bones has made an estimated $43,588,000 in North America. The film’s cast, particularly Tucci, has received various awards and nominations, notably including a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations.

Alternative Viewing Options;

Plot Synopsis;

In 1973, Susie Salmon (Ronan), a 14-year-old girl living in Norristown, Pennsylvania, dreams of becoming a famous photographer. On December 6, Ray Singh (Reece Ritchie), a boy Susie has had a crush on, approaches her at her locker and slips a note into her textbook. He asks her out for the following Saturday and attempts to kiss her, but they are interrupted by a teacher (Thomas McCarthy) scolding a fellow classmate, Ruth Conners, (Carolyn Dando).

As Susie is walking home from school, she runs into her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who coaxes her into seeing an underground den that he says he has built for the neighborhood children. While in the den, Susie becomes uncomfortable in Harvey’s presence and tries to leave; when he restrains her, she kicks him in the face and runs out of the den back into the field, passing Ruth along the way. Meanwhile, the Salmon family begins to worry because of Susie not returning home yet. Her father, Jack (Wahlberg), leaves to go look for her. Susie makes it into town and sees her father, but he does not see her. Susie instead runs home, but discovers the house empty. She enters the upstairs bathroom to find Harvey soaking in a bathtub. After discovering her charm bracelet hanging on the sink faucet, near a bloody shaving razor, Susie realizes that she never escaped the den and was instead murdered by Harvey. As she screams in horror, she is pulled away into a surreal world that is neither heaven nor earth, but “The In-Between,” where she continues to watch over her loved ones. She is unable to let go of her life and family despite her new afterlife friend, Holly (Nikki SooHoo), urging her to move on.
Part One

Part Two

Police are called in to investigate Susie’s disappearance four hours later . Detective Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli) finds Susie’s hat with traces of her blood on it and confirms that Susie has most likely been killed. In response, Jack develops all of Susie’s pictures, and soon begins to obsessively research various neighbors, including Harvey, through their tax records. Fenerman interviews Harvey, but cannot find any evidence to pin him as a suspect. Susie’s sister Lindsey comes to agree with her father on his suspicions, but their casework stresses Susie’s mother, Abigail (Weisz), to the point where her alcoholic mother, Lynn (Susan Sarandon), moves into their home to look after the family. Stricken with grief and alienated from her husband, Abigail eventually leaves the family for California. In her afterlife, Susie decides to inspect a lighthouse that has been beckoning her to enter. Once there, she learns that Harvey has murdered several other young girls, including Holly, and that he is keeping Susie’s body in a safe in his basement.

One night, Jack follows Harvey with a baseball bat into the cornfield seeking revenge upon him. However, Jack accidentally stumbles across Clarissa (Amanda Michalka), a friend of Susie’s, with her boyfriend Brian (Jake Abel), who beats Jack unconscious. Jack is sent to the hospital, prompting Lindsey to break into Harvey’s house looking for evidence. She discovers a notebook underneath the bedroom floorboard containing a sketch of the clubhouse and a piece of Susie’s hair. Harvey returns home and catches Lindsey in his house. But Lindsey manages to escape and runs back home to discover that her mother, Abigail, has returned home. Fearing of being caught, Harvey flees Norristown, taking the safe containing Susie’s body.

Susie’s realm of afterlife begins to expand into a larger heaven, and she is greeted by Harvey’s other victims. She declines Holly’s urging to enter heaven along with the others, saying she has one more thing to do. Meanwhile, Ruth and Ray are present at the sinkhole when Harvey drives up to dispose of the safe. Susie returns to Earth and enters Ruth’s body, causing her to collapse. Ray rushes to Ruth’s aid only to discover she has become Susie. They share a kiss, completing Susie’s last wish, and she returns to heaven.

Sometime later, during the winter, Harvey meets a young woman outside a diner and attempts to coax her into his car, but she rebuffs him. Suddenly, a large icicle falls from an overhead branch and hits Harvey on the shoulder, causing him to fall backward over a cliff and into a ravine, killing him. Susie sees that Lindsey and her boyfriend Samuel Heckler (Andrew James Allen) are married and expecting a child, that her mother is now able to go into her room, and that her family is healing. Susie refers to these as “the lovely bones” that grew around her absence. The film closes with Susie finally entering her larger heaven while wishing her audience a long and happy life.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Capone travels to The Inbetween to examine Peter Jackson’s flawed but hypnotic take on THE LOVELY BONES! (aintitcool.com)
• The Lovely Bones: Film review (guardian.co.uk)
• The Lovely Bones: Stuck in limbo, but it looks lovely (thestar.com)
• CinePhillyist Reviews… The Lovely Bones (phillyist.com)
• ‘The Lovely Bones’: Director Peter Jackson overburdens Alice Sebold’s delicate novel (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The Lovely Bones Splits Movie Critics (news.sky.com)