Trigger warning: The following links are related to sexual harassment and murder.

  • The Lovely Bones It’s a gripping story that combines the supernatural, horror and drama genres and is based on a real-life murder in Pennsylvania.
  • Alice Sebold, the author, was inspired by her own experiences of sexual abuse to write the story from the point of view of a murdered girl seeking justice.
  • Screen version of the work The Lovely Bones conveys the emotional depth of the story and serves as a chilling reminder of women’s potential vulnerability to such heinous crimes.

The Lovely Bones is a suspenseful tale spanning multiple genres of cinema including supernatural, horror and drama. Since most of the movie is filmed from the perspective of a young girl stranded in purgatory, it’s hard to believe it could be related to any real life event, but it is! The Lovely Bones tells the story of a young girl, Susie Salmon.Saoirse Ronan), which is killed. Susie is lured to her neighbor George’s house (Stanley Tucci) home, where he raped and killed her. Susie does not realize at first that she is dead, but she eventually realizes that she is now stuck between worlds where she can watch over her family and society. As she watches, all she needs is justice for her death, the healing of her family, and a kiss from her lover. However, being between worlds has its advantages when trying to catch the killer. Susie meets other girls George has killed in the past and this helps her find out who his next target might be. While all of this is going on, Susie’s family is gathering clues to capture George and trying to live their lives every day while still mourning the irresistible loss. In the end, Susie and her family can find peace, but it takes a lot of anger and sadness.

The Lovely Bones is partly about a murder in Pennsylvania

Image via Paramount Pictures

Susie Salmon’s story was based on a book, and this book is partly based on a real-life murder that took place in Pennsylvania in the 1970s. It happened in Norristown, Pennsylvania. A 14-year-old girl was kidnapped from her parents, brutally raped and killed. Hearing about it Alice Sebold supposedly wanted to write the book from the point of view of the dead, so she wrote from Susie’s point of view. The murder of a young girl inspired her, but this is where the book and eventual film dive more into a fantasy world than real time. Sebold seemed to imagine what it must be like to look down on his family, overcome with grief and needing justice for his own murder. Susie’s character beautifully portrays the pain of not being able to protect herself from harm and the guilt of leaving her loved ones behind while spending her time in the ethereal realm. Although this is where the story stops being a teenager from Norristown and becomes more about Sebold herself.

Alice Sebold Receives Catharsis With ‘The Lovely Bones’

Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
Image via Paramount Pictures

Before writing The Lovely BonesSebold wrote her memoirs, Lucky. This story is an incredibly unfortunate story about her college days and her rape experience. While attending college at Syracuse University in 1981, Sebold experienced the unthinkable when she returned to her room one evening. An unknown person attacked her in a pedestrian tunnel and changed her life forever. Sebold survived, but the attacker went into hiding for a while. After the attack, Sebold returned to her family home in Philadelphia. Her parents urged her to drop out of university and enroll in a local Catholic college, but Sebold had already been accepted into a program in Syracuse that allowed her to work with two great writers, Tess Gallagher, And Tobias Wolf.

Back at school, she began to write more and more. Sebold said New Yorker that she always knew she would write about her experiences. The moment that really pushed her to write her own story came during a Gallagher class when she was writing a poem alluding to her attack. Shortly after writing this poem, Siebold was on her way to a seminar with Wolf and saw her attacker, or so it seemed to her. Sebold ended up calling the man she saw her rapist and George Broadwater was arrested on charges. It seems that writing this poem in class allowed her to bring out her abuser. Although Sebold misidentified him as the attacker in the lineup, Broadwater was ultimately sentenced to 40 years for assaulting Sebold.

The Lovely Bones predates Lucky

Nikki Suhu talking to Saoirse Ronan who is standing in front of her and looking away in The Lovely Bones.
Image via Paramount Pictures

In 1995, Alice Sebold was living in Irvine, California and taking a creative writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Here she began to write the story of Susie Salmon and The Lovely Bones. After writing an introduction to The Lovely BonesSebold stated that she knew she needed to tell her own story in order to separate them. The result was a sharp contrast of experiences. Lucky, her personal memoir, was solid and detailed. It was dark, factual, and incredibly scary, but different from Susie’s story. Susie was attacked in the same way as Sebold, but her story is told differently. In an interview with NPR, Sebold stated that she wanted to tell the story the way Susie would have told it, without interfering with her own experiences and thoughts about the attack. Lucky was published in 1999 and The Lovely Bones appeared shortly thereafter in 2002.

Alice Sebold’s nightmare continues

Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
Image via Paramount Pictures

In November 2021, Broadwater was acquitted of his crime against Sebold, which sent shock waves through the literary community. He spent more than 16 years in prison, tried five times to overturn his conviction and was denied parole at least five times for not confessing to a crime he did not commit. According to The New Yorker, Sebold had a hard time when he learned of Broadwater’s acquittal. She described it as “pulling a thread out of a sweater and it falls out.” Both sides suffered in this situation. Broadwater had to wait to see the light at the end of the tunnel because of his wrongful conviction, and Sebold because she knew her rapist was still there and didn’t get justice.

The Lovely Bones every woman’s worst nightmare. Similar attacks can happen to you, your daughter, sister, mother, or someone you know. Troubled story about The Lovely Bones and how vague, but detailed enough to send shivers into your bones. The emotional depth that the film is able to convey is palpable, and it only makes sense that Peter Jacksona film based on the life of Alice Sebold could do that. If you are looking for a supernatural mystery, The Lovely Bones will surpass you into another realm of observation. You can stream this chiller on Hulu or Paramount+.