This is the story of LOVELY BONES
In 1973, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a 14-year-old girl living with her parents, sister, and brother, dreams of becoming a photographer. On December 6, Ray Singh (Reece Ritchie), a boy Susie has a crush on, approaches her at her locker and slips a note into her textbook. He asks her out for the following Saturday, and as they are about to have their first kiss, they are interrupted by a teacher (Thomas McCarthy) scolding a fellow classmate, Ruth Connors (Carolyn Dando).
As Susie walks home through a cornfield, she runs into her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who coaxes her into an underground den he says he has built for the neighborhood children. While in the den, Susie becomes uncomfortable in Harvey's presence and attempts to leave; when he grabs her, she elbows him in the face and runs into the field and onto the street, passing Ruth along the way. Meanwhile, the Salmon family begins to worry because Susie has not returned home. Her father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), leaves to search for her, while her mother, Abigail (Rachel Weisz), waits for the police. Susie makes it into town and sees her father, but he does not respond when she calls out to him. Susie runs home and finds Harvey soaking in a bathtub. After discovering her charm bracelet hanging on the sink faucet near a bloody shaving razor, Susie realizes that Harvey has murdered her. As she screams in horror, she is pulled into a surreal world, the "In-Between", that is neither Heaven nor Earth. From there, Susie watches over her loved ones, unable to let go despite her new afterlife friend, Holly Golightly (Nikki SooHoo), urging her to move on.
Investigating Susie's disappearance, Detective Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli) finds Susie's hat with blood on it and believes Susie has been murdered. Convinced the killer is someone Susie knew, Jack begins obsessively researching neighbors, including Harvey. Fenerman interviews Harvey but is unable to find any evidence to link him as a suspect. Susie's sister, Lindsey (Rose McIver), comes to agree with her father's suspicions, but their casework takes an emotional toll on Abigail, and Jack invites her alcoholic mother, Lynn (Susan Sarandon), to move into their home to look after the family. Feeling alienated from her husband, Abigail leaves for California. In her afterlife, Susie inspects a lighthouse and learns that Harvey, who has now targeted Lindsey as his next victim after seeing her, has murdered six other females, including Holly, and that he stashed Susie's body into a safe in his basement.
One night, Jack, convinced Harvey killed Susie, trails him into the cornfield carrying a bat. However, Jack accidentally stumbles across Susie's friend, Clarissa (Amanda Michalka) and her boyfriend, Brian (Jake Abel), who beats Jack unconscious, nearly killing him. As Jack recuperates at home after being hospitalized, Lindsey breaks into Harvey's house looking for evidence. She discovers a notebook containing a sketch of the den, a lock of Susie's hair and several news articles concerning Susie's disappearance and murder. However, Harvey returns home and hears Lindsey, who barely escapes and runs home to discover that her mother has returned and gives the evidence of Susie to her grandmother. Fearful of being caught, Harvey flees, taking the safe containing Susie's remains, with him.
The realm in Susie's afterlife begins expanding into a larger heaven, and she is greeted by Harvey's other victims. She declines Holly's urging to enter heaven along with the others, saying she has one final thing to do. Meanwhile, Ruth and Ray are present when Harvey drives up to dispose of the safe at a sinkhole dump site on the Connors property. Susie returns to Earth and enters Ruth's body. Ray rushes to Ruth's aid only to realize she has become Susie. They share a kiss, completing Susie's last wish, and she returns to Heaven, as Harvey drives away.
Sometime later, Harvey meets a young woman outside a diner and offers her a ride, but she rebuffs him, leaving Harvey standing alone in the parking lot. Suddenly, a large icicle falls from an overhead branch, hitting Harvey on the shoulder. He loses his balance, falls backward over a cliff to his death. Time passes, and Susie sees that her family is healing, which Susie refers to as "the lovely bones" that grew around her absence.
As the film concludes, Susie finally enters Heaven, telling the audience: "My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. I was here for a moment and then I was gone. I wish you all a long and happy life."
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