The Lovely Bones - Are You Kidding?

 (2009) ★★☆☆☆

It ends with Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) saying 'I wish you all a long, happy life'. Mmm... a long life doesn't necessarily mean happy. A happy life doesn't really have to be long in fact. But why does Susie have to die at such young age though she seems like a good soul in any way? Why does she have to go like that, without any trace, not even a body left to be found?

Peter Jackson simply put what he thought was important in the novel on the big screen, so if you enjoy Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones', I don't think you have to see this adaptation, coz y'know it's always not a good idea to distil a more-than-300-page detail-oriented novel into a 2-hour motion picture. A lot must be cut and fans would be pissed. And if you don't like reading novels, alright, let me brief you here. It's a story about how Susie Salmon, after being brutally killed at the age of 14 by a sicko living next to her, deals with what she comes across in a Heaven-like place after death, and helps those living catch the murderer and get rid of the pain and sorrow for losing her, period!

Peter Jackson has done a great job making the Heaven not too religious. It's nothing like any God has ever promised you. It's, as a matter of fact, the reflection of one's own experiences and memories in life. But the fact is, when it comes to the matter of death or afterlife, religion plays a big role. Unless it's nothing about that... hang on, is it not, really?

It's said a picture is worth a thousand words. It's true, sometimes, but not all the time. This adaptation is to me a bad attempt to turn those lovely words into moving images, beautiful but yet skin deep.