This may be old news to some people, but I just read this story by the Associated Press which notes that Saoirse Ronan, who is so compelling as the young Briony Tallis in Atonement, is playing the lead role in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones. I am suddenly quite a bit more interested in this film than I was before.
In semi-related news, Variety magazine recently ran an article on the curious similarities between Atonement and The Kite Runner, both of which feature “a terrible transgressive act by a child,” after which “the wronged parties are condemned to suffer through war and turmoil, while the children who wronged them — both of whom grow up to be writers — become aware of their ‘crimes’ as they mature and must make amends for their wrongs.”
Variety doesn’t mention it, exactly, but both films also feature the rape of a minor — as does The Lovely Bones, apparently. (Believe it or not, the rape is not the “terrible transgressive act” in either of the two films examined by Variety; in both cases, the rape is committed by someone else, and it is the catalyst for the “terrible transgressive act” committed by the child in question.)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In