The Lovely Bones

Anne Sebold's The Lovely Bones has been optioned by Peter Jackson, and Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Sebold herself are working on a script. It is difficult to guess how this book, which is very dependant on effects in the mind of the reader, can be brought to the screen. The story, an as-told-by from a girl—raped and murdered by an adult acquaintance—following the events after her death and trying to assist in the discovery of her "lovely bones," seems all too likely to be subverted into horror, something that marred Jackson's version of the Lord of the Rings, which occasionally seemed to have too many orcs and not enough elves. Jackson began as a director of horror films and has an affinity for that genre. We can hope for a defter touch for The Lovely Bones, for it is the telling the distinguishes this tale, not the unfolding of a brutal event that might have headlined the evening news.