The LA Times’ Rachel Abramowitz talks to the screenwriters about how to bring the fantasy elements of The Lovely Bones to the screen. Hands down, this would be the hardest line to walk adapting the novel to the screen. However, it’s worth noting that if there is one director who can do it it’s Peter Jackson.
After young Susie Salmon is murdered by the local pedophile in “The Lovely Bones,” she ends up in a place easily mistaken for heaven, but what she discovers is that this magical terrain is actually an in-between state, “a place she’s caught in until she can resolve the issues of her death,” says co-writer Phillipa Boyens. “This in-between world is a 14-year-old’s idea of what an ideal world can be.”
Hm. “Local pedophile,” sounds like “local grocer” or “local milkman.”
In Susie’s heaven-like afterlife, a giant camellia lurks in a crystalline mountain lake, nestled beneath snow-capped mountains. “Susie doesn’t understand what it means. The audience doesn’t either, but these things will and do make sense. It’s the language of dreams. That’s what we were trying for,” Boyens says.
The startling images — shot by Jackson’sfellow Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” cinematographer Andrew Lesnie and crafted by production designer Naomi Shohan — are a melding of computer imagery and the startlingly beautiful vistas of the South Island of New Zealand.
“She’s running on a beach, which is a real beach in New Zealand,” Boyens says. “That lake is at the top of a mountain in the South Island. They helicoptered up there.”
“It’s the idea of being trapped in a perfect world,” adds Walsh, pointing to the snow globe metaphor that opens Sebold’s book, in which Susie pities the lone penguin locked in his plastic paradise. “Susie’s in her own version of the snow globe.”
13 Responses for "How to Build the Lovely Bones Afterlife"
My anticipation for Lovely Bones just keeps growing. I’ve heard the screenplay is excellent, and now the visuals are looking amazing, too.
Has anyone else here read the book? It’s fairly ambiguous who the killer is at first, and once it becomes clearer, the reader doesn’t know if Susie’s family will figure it out too. It’s held in suspense for almost the entire novel.
But, for the filmed version, it’s revealed in the trailer and all the advance press. Anyone else concerned with the spoiler-heavy nature of The Lovely Bones marketing? If there’s anything making me apprehensive about it, that’s it.
I’m not apprehensive about people knowing the killer’s identity. Heavenly Creatures was like that: we knew from the beginning that the girls had murdered Pauline’s mother, because it was based on a real-life case that was a huge sensation in the press. Yet Jackson & Walsh managed to make it nerve-wracking, watching the whole thing play out.
Ryan B. I agree that there’s suspense to it but I wouldn’t say it’s a thriller. A thriller is of a specific genre where the bad guys get nailed in the end. This is probably a little more along the lines of Mystic River, despite the fantasy elements.
I didn’t say it was a thriller either. I’m just saying the trailer gives away an important part of the story.
The trailer doesn’t give away anything that’s not in the book. You know the kid was murdered, you know who the killer is pretty quickly into the book, the suspense ensues because you don’t know that the parents will discover it and when or if the murderer will be uncovered and brought to justice. It’s like Hitchcock — the audience usually knew but the suspense came because the character didn’t. There’s a term for it when the audience knows something the characters, or at least not all of the characters know, I just can’t remember it. I can’t wait to see this film — the story is compelling and with Peter Jackson’s imagination at work bringing that story to life, I am eagerly awaiting this one.
ladylurks—
i think your mistaken, because the murder and the identity of the killer was revealed in the very first chapter of the book.
Yeah, I recall the identity of her killer being revealed pretty early.
In related news, what’s the deal with the euphemisms in both the NY and LA times? The former calls him the “neighborhood pervert” and the latter goes with “local pedophile,” both sounding a bizarre note of “every neighborhood’s got one!” How about “rapist”? It isn’t as though he’s just a creepy man who’s secretly into children and does nothing about it.
“i think your mistaken, because the murder and the identity of the killer was revealed in the very first chapter of the book.”
Um, isn’t that what I said? I’m not apprehensive about it, because the killer being known is a given. It’s not a secret in the book. It wasn’t a secret in the similarly-themed Heavenly Creatures. It will have no effect on the level of suspense.
THE LANGUAGE OF DREAMS, I cant wait for this movie, the true dark horse ready to explode
>>>>>>>>SPOILER!
One of the messages of the book, and the author makes this abundantly clear, is that Susie is ‘an imperfect being in a perfect place’, and this condition bring several dramas to her.
Just knowing that this is in the movie, makes me more and more anxious!
And the idea of using the language of dreams is perfect for the plot!
“Has anyone else here read the book? It’s fairly ambiguous who the killer is at first…”
Perhaps your memory of the book has faded over time, Ryan B. The killer’s identity is revealed to the reader on the second page.
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