First peek at Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones'

By Sarah Sluis

Alice Sebold's 2002 novel The Lovely Bones was the kind of book you could never imagine being adapted for the big screen: its main character is a young girl who has been raped and murdered. From her perch in heaven, she observes her family and the killer in the aftermath, narrating both her story and theirs. It's told in a non-sequential structure, with plenty of digressions, flashbacks, and flashforwards that tightly control the reading experience. Despite these challenges, the novel was acquired before it even became a bestseller.

Paramount, it seems, feels it has a winner, and moved up its release from March to awards season, December 11th. After a preview on "Entertainment Tonight," the trailer was just released online, and will be shown before screenings of Julie & Julia, to a suitably female, literary-oriented audience.

My initial reaction to the trailer was mixed. They start with the first line from the book, "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie," giving readers an assurance of the film's literary authenticity. But the images of Susie's heaven are surprising, much different from what you'd imagine from reading the book. Still, I trust Peter Jackson to interweave fantasy with the narrative. Elijah Wood's intermittent visions of himself with the ring in Lord of the Rings worked quite well, often contrasting a high-energy sequence with the more dreamlike vision, and I anticipate Jackson will be able to accomplish a similar feat in Bones.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the disconnect between the horrible tragedies in the book (the murder, grieving family, etc.) and the distant, ethereal, wise tone with which Susie narrates. While the trailer abandons the voice-over halfway though, instead showing us images of the family making passionate but amateur attempts to track down Susie's killer, I hope that Jackson makes a point to include Susie's voice throughout the movie, despite the tonal difficulties that may cause.

The cast includes two Oscar winners and two nominees. Mark Wahlberg (nominee) and Rachel Weisz (winner) star as the Salmon parents, Susan Sarandon (winner) plays the Grandma, and Saoirse Ronan (nominee, Atonement) plays fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon. If the movie plays like the book, it will be strongly female-oriented. However, Wahlberg's character has the same protectionist instinct that appealed to viewers of Taken, the surprise kidnapping hit that starred Liam Neeson, which I think improves the movie's commercial prospects. While The Lovely Bones doesn't scream "Oscar" the way an old-fashioned costume drama does, if it delivers on its trailer I expect it will be among the ten nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars, along with a healthy smattering of nominations for its cast and crew.