For a man well-versed in depicting fantasy realms unlike our own (LORs), I was disappointed that Peter Jackson did not make a huge visual distinction between our world and the after life. At least it isn’t What Dreams May Come, but that isn’t such a high bar. Unfortunately because I read and enjoyed the book, any adaptation of The Lovely Bones is going to fall short of my imagination. I know that some people were horrified by the brutality of one scene when the main character witnesses her killer in the bathroom post. I actually thought The Lovely Bones was too decorous. It needed a dash of cold almost documentary, matter-of-fact brutality in the depiction of our world as successfully depicted and suffered by Sally Field’s daughter in Eye for an Eye to effectively contrast with the levels of the character’s after life and provide a supporting framework for her surviving family and friends’ rage and/or sorrow. Instead their lives after Susie’s death mostly feels mechanical, paint-by-numbers-even played for laughs in several scenes with Susan Sarandon. I don’t blame the actors at all-Mark Wahlberg was born to play a mourning and vengeful father of a dead daughter holding a baseball bat. The only actor who successfully managed to get Peter Jackson to meld the scene visually and emotionally is Rose McIver as the younger sister in her interaction with Stanley Tucci. Even in her pre-tragedy, silent running scenes, she stole the scene from Saorise Ronan. Skip the film adaptation of The Lovely Bones and read the book, but tons of trigger warnings for rape and violence.