Friday, December 6, 2013

December 6 - The Lovely Bones

This movie has a scene that happens today – December 6. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

THE LOVELY BONES             

Susie Salmon lives a relatively normal suburban childhood with photography, crushes and saving her brother’s life. Then on December 6, 1973 [15:28 to 38:08], while cutting through a cornfield on her way home from school, she makes the mistake of climbing down into an underground room at the behest of her neighbor, George Harvey. When she becomes uncomfortable she tries to leave and the scene fades. Her parents look for her, in spite of the police thinking she has run away. Susie returns to her house, but no one is there. She walks through a door into a white limbo where she sees Harvey taking a bath. When she sees her charm bracelet hanging on his sink, Susie realizes Harvey murdered her and she is pulled into the ‘in-between’, nether Earth or Heaven. Harvey disposes of all the evidence at his house before the police talked to him. Ruth Connors talks to Ray Singh at the mall where he was to meet Susie and she sees Susie, earning Susie the criticism of Holly, who is also in the “in-between” and who urges her to move on to Heaven. Susie instead goes back.  She exists in the “in-between” while her parents try to cope, with her father, Jack investigating Susie’s disappearance, using suspects gathered from the rolls of film left by Susie, which he develops at the rate of one per month. Their dog barks at Harvey. Their Mom leaves, because of Jack’s refusal to stop investigating has left her feeling alienated. Harvey starts spying on Lindsey, Susie’s younger sister. Jack starts to suspect Harvey, especially after Susie makes a dead flower from Harvey’s yard bloom. Jack follows Harvey to the cornfield one night, but instead gets beaten up by a teen couple who were using it as a make–out spot. In the ‘in-between’ Susie sees all of Harvey’s other victims, one of who was Holly. Lindsey breaks into Harvey’s house and finds a notebook with a lock of Susie’s hair, but upon returning home and finding her mother has returned she gives it to her grandmother instead. Harvey knows she took the notebook and flees. Susie returns to Earth and enters Ruth Connor’s body allowing her to have her last wish and kiss Ray Singh. She then departs for Heaven with Harvey’s other victims. Harvey dumps the safe with Susie’s body into a sinkhole. Later Harvey offers a young girl outside a diner a lift, but she refuses. An icicle falls, hits him in the shoulder and knocks him over a cliff, killing him. Susie’s family finally achieves peace and healing after her death.

A very powerful film. There are some disturbing images here, so this film is definitely not for children.  Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci both give outstanding performances.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown & Co., New York, 2002) at page 5 and the film at 7:15 to 7:17 give the date she was killed

Producers - Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Carolynne Cunningham and Aimée Peyronnet

Director - Peter Jackson

Screenplay - Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens

Awards – This movie was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor (Tucci) Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards

Runtime – 2 hours 15 minutes

Released – November 24, 2009

Starring –

Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who is killed by her neighbor
Mark Wahlberg as Jack Salmon, Susie's father
Rachel Weisz as Abigail Salmon, Susie's mother
Rose McIver as Lindsey Salmon, Susie's younger sister
Stanley Tucci as George Harvey, a serial killer who murders Susie
Susan Sarandon as Grandma Lynn, Susie's grandmother
Michael Imperioli as Len Fenerman, the detective who investigates Susie's death
Reece Ritchie as Ray Singh, Susie's love interest and friend
Charlie Saxton as Ronald Drake, one of the murder suspects
Amanda Michalka as Clarissa, Susie's best friend
Carolyn Dando as Ruth Connors, a classmate of Susie's
Nikki SooHoo as Denise "Holly" Le Ang, Susie's best friend in Heaven
Jake Abel as Brian Nelson
Thomas McCarthy as Principal Caden
Andrew James Allen as Samuel Heckler













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