The Lovely Bones stands infamous in Hollywood as the film which finally broke Peter Jacksons run of excellent films. The New Zealander continually knocked it out the park, but even he couldnt tackle Alice Sebolds book without coming unstuck. What makes the film so unfortunate is that the book itself is really good focusing on 14-year-old Susie Salmon looking down on her family and killer after she is raped and murdered. That premise alone set it apart from the crowd, and the emotional storytelling it provided made it a bestseller. There was a belief this could be translated to the box office. But sadly, the film simply doesnt have the balls to engage with the books darker content. Make no mistake, The Lovely Bones is extremely dark, with scenes of sex, murder and rape complimenting extremely dark subject matter. Yet the film plays out as the sanitised, Cliff Notes version, robbing it of the traumatic themes which made the book so engaging. Granted, I can see why they did it studios need to make their money back so placing yourself outside the magic 12A rating can be commercial suicide. Also, the book did need to be trimmed back in places depicted the rape of a 14-year-old girl may work in print, but it definitely wont work on the film reels. But to not even acknowledge such a major part of the book was a massive mistake.