The UN-Lovely Bones

By Ashley Mandzak

The Lovely Bones was not a very good film. I would rather spend a day or two reading “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Seibel than spend the two and a half hours watching the film. The film was not put together very well. Compared to the novel, the film has barely any similarities. Film director Peter Jackson, probably only called this “The Lovely Bones” to avoid a copyrighting the novel. This was not very well betrayed. If I had made this film I would have none a lot of things differently. This film was not very good. "The Lovely Bones" is a film based on a novel by Alice Seibel, about a 14 year old who is murdered and how her family is affected. Susie Salmon is killed in 1973, in a cornfield, by her neighbour Mr. Harvey, and she tries to help her family find her murderer from her heaven. Through out the movie we learn about Susie’s family and their struggles as the cope. Lindsay, Susie’s younger sister, starts to experience moments that Susie never had and this makes Susie a little upset that her sister has passed her. Susie’s mother leaves to California, not able to take anymore of what has happen. Susie’s father starts analyzing everybody in the neighbourhood, thinking everyone is a suspect. One day this obsession goes to far and Jack Salmon gets badly injured and is taken to the hospital. Susie’s mother returns when Mr. Salmon is in the hospital and she is back for good. Lindsay broke into Mr. Harvey’s house after hearing of her father’s suspicions and received proof that Mr. Harvey murdered her sister, but he saw her. Lindsay got away from Mr. Harvey but Mr. Harvey left town and was never caught. Overall this movie was not really worth my time.
The movie “The Lovely Bones” by Peter Jackson was very unlike the novel. I disagreed with a lot of the people he had casted in the movie. I do not think they resembled the characters in the novel as well as they could have. The person who stuck out the most was Jack Salmon (Mark Wallbour). The actor, who played Mr. Salmon, did not feel like a fatherly figure and in the novel he felt very fatherly and the actor didn’t look the father type of person. The director could have added a little bit more about Ruth Connors (). In the novel we learn that Ruth is a loner on earth, but in heaven is a hero. Ruth can feel the dead around her and know what happen to them. In the movie this was not very well said. It only told you that she felt Susie, but it didn’t go any farther. One character that the director did get right was Grandma Lynn (Susanne Sarandon). This character brought light to the film, just like the novel, and acted just like the book. She was crazy, fun and loving and it made the film a little better.
The beginning of this film, although unlike the novel was very well done. They opened with Susie worrying about a penguin trapped inside a snow globe, but her father reassured her, he was trapped in a perfect world. This is foreshadowing to how Susie feels in her heaven. Susie’s death was well done in the film, not as horrible to witness as it was in the book.


The film was better at being more suspenseful than the novel was. When Lindsay was in Mr. Harvey’s house, Peter Jackson did a great job of making the audiences squirm. The audience was at the edge of their seats waiting for the next move. Sadly, this was the end of excitement.