What is the meaning of "The Lovely Bones" 2009 by Peter Jackson?
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
In my review of Transformers 4 I touched upon the uncanny resemblance of it to Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. I have not seen the movie when I did that. I knew it existed. I knew what it was about. I've only seen it now, for the first time. And the uncanny resemblance ( as in, the father is played once again by Mark Wahlberg and the villain is played once again by Stanley Tucci and we have Steven Spielberg's involvement ) is rather strange. It begs a rather profound question, what was the point to make the movie? ↩ Reply
So let me at first try to make you understand what I find weird about the two films. You may know about the meme surrounding the fourth Transformers movie. The "Romeo & Juliet" law, that Michael Bay's camera lingers on, for a bit too long. And the plot involving a relationship between a teenage girl and a dude in his 20s. And then you have The Lovely Bones written originally as a novel, by a rape-survivor. Where Stanley Tucci portrays this sadistic asshole, pedophile / child-murderer. And the movie while being rather emotionally jarring is kind of on the surface about the exact opposite of what Transformers 4 is about. And yet, the same people: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci and executive producer Steven Spielberg are involved in both films. Isn't that a bit weird? c:4 c:5 ↩ Reply
I think to understand everything I need reconstruct a few things. Kind of how I did it with my psycho-sexual analysis of The Neon Demon. Which means, I will have to recall the plot of the film in broad strokes. So spoilers ahead... that was your warning. ↩ Reply
So we have a family with 3 kids. Susie ( Saoirse Ronan ) who is 14 years old. She is our main character. Her sister Lindsey ( Rose McIver ) who is 13. And their little brother Buckley ( Christian Thomas Ashdale ). Their mom and dad are played by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz. Also we have an annoying kind of crazy, punk-rock grandmother played by Susan Sarandon which might give us a clue actually. ↩ Reply
We also have George Harvey ( interesting name for the villain character ) who is played by Stanley Tucci. ↩ Reply
In the beginning we have a scene where Buckey is nearly dying. He can't breathe. So our little hero Susie basically steals her parent's car to quickly deliver him to a hospital, so he could be saved. This is interesting that the movie starts on that. We gonna explore this later. ↩ Reply
We learn that Susie is in love with a boy from school Ray ( Reece Ritchie ) who apparently is a few years older than her. And her granny tells her a story of her first kiss. And how she did it with a grown man. And how absolutely fantastic it was ( for her ). We even get a scene as Susie and this boy Ray plan a date of sorts, which never comes, because of what happens next. ↩ Reply
So Harvey gets obsessed with Susie and designs an underground basement thingie, where he plans to do something with Susie. He lures her in with smooth-talk. And then awkwardly tries to, I suppose, seduce her. And when she tries to escape, the film enters a dream state of sorts. Basically he murders her on the spot. But we share her perspective as she is now a ghost, slowly moving through afterlife, into something like a heaven type thing. The transition is smooth enough that for a while it gives us hope that she might have escaped. But then this hope is slowly taken away. ↩ Reply
We get to the next phase of the film, as Susie observes her family and her killer from her ghostly position, her family is trying to cope with the situation in various ways. Mother goes far away in an attempt to forget her. Father obsesses to find the killer. And her sister obsesses over her neighbor's house where Harvey lives. While Harvey is starting to obsess over her. All of their revelations about Harvey might or might not be some kind of ghostly communication with Susie from the afterlife. Susie, meanwhile, in the afterlife, finds the souls of the other victims of Harvey. And they all become friends. c:6 ↩ Reply
We get a tense scene as Lindsey breaks into Harvey's house to find evidence against him. Harvey finds out about it and immediately moves out of the house to avoid getting caught. ↩ Reply
Susie almost enters heaven with the other victims, but decides that she has one last thing to do in the real world. Remember Ray? The older guy from school, she almost got a date with. Well he was kind of sad all this time, because of her death. But he got a gothic girlfriend now. So Susie decides to enter that girlfriend's body, to get that first kiss of hers, before going off to heaven. ↩ Reply
He get a horrible comedic death for the villain ( as he trips and falls to death ). The end. c:6 ↩ Reply
Hm... The message seems to be, on the surface, something to do with acceptance. A tragedy happened and the characters that survived it are trying to cope with the situation in various ways. There was even a different script in development, before Peter Jackson ultimately made this film, where the whole "afterlife" subplot was all in the imagination of her father. So that other script then also would not have the part where Susie enters Ray's GF's body to kiss him. c:7 ↩ Reply
You could read the film as a movie about pedophilia, or child-abuse. Or even as a film about serial killers. Where they are the bad guys that cause a lot of trauma to everybody in the family of the victim. And the movie does that thing very well actually. It even gives the audience a violent catharsis in the end, as we watch the motherfucker fall to his death, in the most silly way possible. ↩ Reply
But then a few years later Steven Spielberg, Stanley Tucci and Mark Wahlberg join forces with Michael Bay this time around to make Transformers 4. A movie that starts with a paranoid father ( played again by Wahlberg ) that, throughout the film's runtime, learns to accept that his underage daughter is in-love with this 20 something year old man, who carries a card in his wallet about some rather absurd sounding law, that technically makes this legal in some states. Hm... ↩ Reply
Let's think about it a bit deeper. Nicola Peltz ( or Nicola Beckham, they change names all the damn time, stop it ) was born in 1995. Making her 18 years and 3 months old when Michael Bay started shooting her as the 17 year old Tessa in the Transformers 4 movie. That explains why Michael isn't fucking afraid to shove his camera up her ass. Her boyfriend in the film, was played by Jack Reynor. And Jack Reynor was born in 1992. Making him 21 years old at the time. ↩ Reply
Stanley Tucci was born in 1960 and The Lovely Bones started filming in October of 2007. That means he was 46-47 years old while making this movie. Saoirse Ronan was born in 1994. Making her 13 during production. The age gap between Harvey and Susie appears to be about 34 years. While the age gap between Tessa and her BF is only 3 years. Problem solved right? ↩ Reply
But how about Ray? Well... Reece Ritchie, who played Ray was born in 1986. Making him 21 on set. And making their age difference 8 years. She, I would remind you, is in love with him, so much that she literally descends from heaven to give him a french kiss. And the director Peter Jackson, in his poetic wisdom, decided to use the actor Saoirse Ronan as the actor for the kiss scene. So we literally witness a romantic, love-driven kiss between a real 13 year old and a real 21 year old. In a film that supposedly anti-pedophilia... Hm... c:8 ↩ Reply
But if dig even deeper it becomes even more interesting. Mark Wahlberg in 1997 made a movie with the director Paul Thomas Anderson called Boogie Nights where he played a porn-star. The film starts with him still a minor, being discovered by a porn-director. And then it revolves around his job as a porn-star for the next few years. The film also shows Wahlberg's majestic, huge penis, in case you wondered. c:9 ↩ Reply
In 2025 Leonardo DiCaprio expressed his regret over choosing to do Titanic instead of doing Boogie Nights. He would work with PTA on 2025 film One Battle After Another. This is the same DiCaprio that at age 50 has a 20 something year old girlfriend. And who has a tendency to only have girlfriends that are much younger than himself. ↩ Reply
We all know that the same Paul Thomas Anderson in 2021 made a controversial film Licorice Pizza ( which stars the father of DiCaprio in a small role ) which is a straight forward love story between a 15 year old boy and a 25 year old woman. And which features two of Steven Spielberg's daughters Sasha and Destry in various roles. ↩ Reply
The same Spielberg who made the movie Catch Me If You Can with DiCaprio, about a teenage boy, who through deception gets a lot of money and a lot of sex. ↩ Reply
Remember I told you that Susan Sarandon might give us a clue. Well while watching the movie I was constantly thinking that I had seen her somewhere, but I couldn't quite remember where I've seen her. Well it turns out she plays the mom in Speed Racer. Which is not important for our conversation, if we ignore the fact that Speed's relationship with his girlfriend in the film starts when they are like 8 or so. ↩ Reply
But scrolling through Susan Sarandon's list of performances I stumbled upon a different film that is rather interesting, given the subject matter of The Lovely Bones. She was also in the 1978 film Pretty Baby starring Brooke Shields and Keith Carradine. The film is a straight forward Lolita story, where 12 year old Shields is seen fully naked in a few scenes and where she shares multiple french kisses with Carradine. This is also the same Brooke Shields from the 1980 film The Blue Lagoon featuring her, this time around 14 year old body. And this is the same Brooke Shields, who was in a controversy when she was 9, because her mom was okay with her featuring naked in a fucking Playboy magazine. Also it is the same Brooke Shields that ( unsurprisingly ) later dated Michael Jackson. c:10 ↩ Reply
Wait the fucking second... The first film is by Peter Jackson. The other film is by Michael Bay... If you combine the two you get... that's right... you get Michael Jackson!!! c:2 ↩ Reply
... ↩ Reply
Sorry... ↩ Reply
Ah... where was I?... So what the fuck is this movie about? What were Peter Jackson and co trying to say with The Lovely Bones? Well I have a theory. ↩ Reply
Perhaps the message is something like this. The film shows you the most stereotypical depiction of a pedophile / serial killer in the most stereotypical way, because the movie wants you to know that it is not saying anything good about people like Harvey. But in the same time, it says that people like Ray, are good people. And those two types of "pedophiles" can coexist in the same universe. One type is a motherfucking monster that we all want to see get killed off in the most spectacular way possible. And the other is so lovely and so nice that a little girl will literally wait with fucking heaven itself, just to get to kiss the motherfucker. c:12 ↩ Reply
That also then makes the other scenes, like where Susie drives a car, or where her sister breaks into Harvey's house, a representation of some kind of respect toward kids that you may not see in a more stereotypical movie about the subject matter. Because the stereotypical movies about the subject matter always tend to show kids as damsels in distress incapable of anything. Showing them respect, means showing them as capable. Yet showing them respect is showing that even capable kids ( or capable people in general ) still can get into trouble that is beyond them. The movie isn't saying that all kids are cool ass motherfuckers that can survive anybody. The story is literally about a little girl dying a the hands of a very bad guy. And the film totally agrees that it is a problem. That the bad guy is a bay guy. But it still refuses to buckle to insincerity. c:13 ↩ Reply
It refuses to choose sides. If you choose anti-pedophilia you kind of expected to choose the belief that kids are damsels in distress that can't do shit. And you are expected to say that all age gaps are wrong in relationships. The movie refuses to do so. The movie sees Harvey for who he truly is. A monster. But the movie also shows that A: kids are cool, so stop with the ageism bullshit. And B guys like Ray also exist. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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Blender Dumbass
c:0Also interesting enough, the Wikipedia about the movie claims that at one point Luc Besson was involved in the project. Hm...
... replies ( 1 )
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Troler
c:1@blenderdumbass "FilmFour has optioned the Alice Sebold novel "The Lovely Bones" and attached Luc Besson and Aimee Peyronnet's Seaside as producers." in https://web.archive.org/web/20071025091125/http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117782048.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
Troler
c:1... c:0
Blender Dumbass c:0Also interesting enough, the Wikipedia about the movie claims that at one point Luc Besson was involved in the project. Hm...
@blenderdumbass "FilmFour has optioned the Alice Sebold novel "The Lovely Bones" and attached Luc Besson and Aimee Peyronnet's Seaside as producers." in https://web.archive.org/web/20071025091125/http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117782048.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
Troler
c:2 Wait the fucking second... The first film is by Peter Jackson. The other film is by Michael Bay... If you combine the two you get... that's right... you get Michael Jackson!!!
⤴ ViewIf you read "Michael Bay: The Exterminating Angel" on huffpost.com you'll realize Michael Bay has nothing to do with "The Exterminating Angel" (1962), yet, as Kim Morgan goes over, there is some strange surrealism in his work.
... replies ( 1 )
Blender Dumbass
c:3@Troler I found that article OMG it is funny:
If, in the next Transformers he replaces Megan Fox midway through the movie with Jessica Alba
He kind of did, but not with Alba, with a model from his Victoria Secret commercials.
Blender Dumbass
c:3... c:2
Troler c:2 Wait the fucking second... The first film is by Peter Jackson. The other film is by Michael Bay... If you combine the two you get... that's right... you get Michael Jackson!!!
⤴ ViewIf you read "Michael Bay: The Exterminating Angel" on huffpost.com you'll realize Michael Bay has nothing to do with "The Exterminating Angel" (1962), yet, as Kim Morgan goes over, there is some strange surrealism in his work.
@Troler I found that article OMG it is funny:
If, in the next Transformers he replaces Megan Fox midway through the movie with Jessica Alba
He kind of did, but not with Alba, with a model from his Victoria Secret commercials.
Troler
c:4 May 25, 2026 You may know about the meme surrounding the fourth Transformers movie
⤴ ViewAS YOU KNOW
Troler
c:5 May 25, 2026 And the movie while being rather emotionally jarring is kind of on the surface about the exact opposite of what Transformers 4 is about.
⤴ ViewOn the surface!
Troler
c:6 May 25, 2026 Susie, meanwhile, in the afterlife, finds the souls of the other victims of Harvey. And they all become friends
⤴ ViewThe end. ⤴ View
Troler
c:7 May 25, 2026 Peter Jackson ultimately made this film, where the whole "afterlife" subplot was all in the imagination of her father
⤴ ViewThank angels of the afterlife that this wasn't made into production. That'd be so stupid.
It was a dream. I hate that trope. Except in Brazil and Inception, I guess.
Troler
c:8 May 25, 2026 In a film that supposedly anti-pedophilia... Hm...
⤴ ViewWell... Luc Besson was supposed to direct the film
Troler
c:9 May 25, 2026 The film also shows Wahlberg's majestic, huge penis, in case you wondered
⤴ ViewIs it rotund?
Troler
c:10 May 25, 2026 because her mom was okay with her featuring naked in a fucking Playboy magazine. Also it is the same Brooke Shields that ( unsurprisingly ) later dated Michael Jackson
⤴ ViewThat Mom deserves an award for anti-paternalism.
I mean, the daughter must've wanted to be in a Playboy magazine
Troler
c:12 May 25, 2026 And the other is so lovely and so nice that a little girl will literally wait with fucking heaven itself, just to get to kiss the motherfucker
⤴ ViewI hope not literally a motherfucker.
Troler
c:13 May 25, 2026 The movie isn't saying that all kids are cool ass motherfuckers that can survive anybody
⤴ ViewCought, cought, Spy Kids
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