Movie · 2009 · Fantasy, Drama · 2h 16m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 3.1/10 (607.6K ratings)
The story of a life and everything that came after...
Overview
After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.
Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Rose McIver, Michael Imperioli, Carolyn Dando, Christian Ashdale, Reece Ritchie, Nikki SooHoo, Jake Abel, AJ Michalka, Tom McCarthy, Stink Fisher, Evelyn Lennon, Andrew James Allen, Stefania LaVie Owen, Scott Evans, Catherine Corcoran
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually ambitious grief fantasy with a strong central performance and a memorable sense of dread, but its tonal shifts and stylized afterlife imagery can feel uneven. It’s most rewarding if you’re open to a melodramatic, emotionally heightened approach to trauma and closure.
Best for
viewers who like grief dramas with a supernatural angle
fans of eerie, stylized visual storytelling
people interested in unsettling villain performances
audiences who don’t mind tonal imbalance in service of mood
Skip if
you want a restrained, realistic treatment of trauma
you’re sensitive to depictions of child murder and grief
you prefer cleanly resolved endings
you dislike glossy CGI-heavy fantasy imagery
Overview
The Lovely Bones is a strange, mournful hybrid: part family drama, part murder thriller, part dreamlike afterlife fable. Its biggest strength is the emotional premise, which gives the story a child’s-eye intimacy even as it reaches for something cosmic and symbolic. The film is often at its best when it stays close to the family’s private grief and the lingering shock of absence.
Worth noting
The movie’s reputation is complicated by its style, and fairly so. The heavenly visuals are divisive, sometimes beautiful and sometimes garish, and the tonal balance can wobble between tenderness, horror, and sentimentality. Still, there’s a real unease running through it, especially in the way ordinary suburban spaces become haunted by what happened there.
Bottom line
What lingers most is the film’s atmosphere of suspended mourning. It is not a neat catharsis machine, and it doesn’t fully earn every emotional turn, but it does create a memorable emotional afterimage. For viewers drawn to eerie, grief-stricken cinema with a strong sense of the uncanny, it remains worth a look.
Top Letterboxd reviews
CinemaVoid 🏴☠️ (1★) · 5862 likes
According to Peter Jackson, when you’re violently murdered your soul travels to a Windows XP screensaver.
bel (4★) · 4575 likes
right so now that im absolutely terrified of stanley tucci im going to watch devil wears prada to trick myself into thinking hes a really good person
Vivian (2★) · 4442 likes
this is what I think is going to happen to me every time a man speaks to me in public
Kait (3★) · 2215 likes
where is stanley tucci's oscar for making me want to crawl out of my skin for 135 minutes straight
annabel m lee (3.5★) · 2124 likes
everyone who makes houses miniatures is up to no good
2001 · Fantasy, Drama, Mystery · 1h 54m · R · Curator 8.7/10 (3.2M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A moody, uncanny blend of adolescence, death, and metaphysical unease that also leans into suburban alienation.
2011 · Drama, Thriller · 1h 53m · R · Curator 6.8/10 (710.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Peacock Premium, Philo, MUBI, OVID, Cineverse, Midnight Pulp, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
Explores parental grief, dread, and the aftermath of violence with a similarly chilling domestic atmosphere.