The Lovely
Bones is such a tragic story
because at fourteen everything feels unrequited. Susie was old enough that,
after her death, she was able to dwell on each element of life that her
murderer had taken away.
Peter Jackson’s 2009 adaptation of Alice Sebold’s
novel is a wonderful film, littered with powerful performances and beautiful
CGI scenery.
You will be able to watch The Lovely Bones again and again, but choose your times wisely. The
film is best savored during a quiet night-in with no interruptions, when you
can comfortably spend 130 minutes mid-way between a gasp and a cry.
In the pivotal murder scene, Susie walks through the
cornfield just as her mother prepares the dinner that she will never eat – the
scratch of the porcelain plates echo the crunch of her steps upon the drying
husks.
As she descends into the deep hole, you will plead for
her to stop, to see, to flee. As
George Harvey laughs, your skin will crawl. And when Susie does see, and you
know that it’s too late, your heart will thump along with hers.
The anticipation and foreboding continues after Susie
is gone. You will have the same stirrings of fear whenever Mr Harvey lurks
around his intricately crafted doll house; when he sits alone in his basement,
enjoying his memories; and when Lindsay surveys Mr Harvey’s house and cannot
see him peering back at her.
In an interview with Scott Bowles from USATODAY,
Jackson said:
“I never
found the book to be bleak. At times the story was shocking, and always it was
told with unflinching honesty.”
Sebold’s novel is not bleak because she weaves the most
shocking details seamlessly in with the mundane, the heart wrenching in with
the humourous.
In the first chapter, when Susie first describes the
small room beneath the earth where she was murdered, you are suddenly presented
with a startling fact: that a neighbourhood dog discovered her elbow three days
later.
A fourteen-year-old girl’s dismembered limb being dug
out of the ground and gnawed-on by an animal is quite shocking, but Sebold
makes it readable by presenting the facts in a direct, conversational and
almost nonchalant way, as if directly from Susie’s stream of conscious.
Adapting this type of subtle, eloquent storytelling to
the big screen was always going to be difficult. In order to recreate a tone
that aimed to thrill rather than to terrify, it became necessary for Jackson to
omit certain confronting elements of the book. (The elbow, for example.)
Rather than being dismembered and disposed of
immediately, Susie’s body in the film was kept in a safe in Harvey’s basement.
Also unlike the novel, Susie’s spirit in the film is allowed to flee the
cornfield and is saved from the memory of her rape and the look on his face as
Harvey unsheathed his knife.
There are also other obvious exclusions – such as the
police interrogation and public scrutiny of Ray Singh; Jack’s heart attack, and
Abigail’s fleeting affair with the Detective Fenerman. Neglecting these details
does not detract from the film, it allows it to move forward – rather than
becoming overwhelmed by the reverberations of Susie’s death, viewers can
instead bask in her heaven.
The Lovely
Bones is a tragic film, but it is
the tragedy that also makes it beautiful. If Susie had not been deprived of so
many experiences, there would have been nothing to hold her in the place
between earth and heaven where she is haunted by her life as much as the people
left behind are haunted by her death.
When I began researching this blog post, I was
surprised to read so many negative reviews of The Lovely Bones. When the film was first released, many
critics found fault with it.
Claudia Puig from USATODAY, wrote:
“Some
books are not meant to be adapted to the big screen. Alice Sebold's
best-selling The Lovely Bones falls into that category.”
I could not disagree more.
The verdict:
Book
or Big Screen? Book
The film is:
-->3. A decent,
credible, faithful adaptation
I would be
very happy to receive your comments and feedback on ‘Book or Big Screen’ –
please click on the below link to tell me what film adaptation you are excited
about, or to suggest the book/film that I should review next.
Not seen this one - far too "tragic" of a story for me.
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