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I could be wrong but my thought on why the boy she liked seemed so unrealistic/perfect/unbelievable was because that was probably how she viewed him as a young girl experiencing her first love interest
But also, boys were better socialized back then. I was an 80s kid and my crushes wrote poetry and made mistakes for me in middle and high school. In the book, she also mentioned that he was a Brit who seemed more mature than other boys around her.
@@lavinder11yeah, I haven’t read it in years but in the book he’s described as quite cultured and sophisticated several times. Very fond of classic literature and had traveled quite a bit.
The murderer's death scene was originally just him slipping and falling out of frame. Test audiences didn't like that it looked like a peaceful death for an awful person, so they added the sequence of him hitting all the stuff on the way down.
👏 the audience were right. I would have been dissapointed too. He needed a death like that, it implies that he got what was coming. I remember screaming at the tv saying "Yessss FINALLY! You deserve every bit of that fall!". 😂
I literally ran to the comments after I noticed that. This movie traumatized me, so I never really re-watched it. And now that I’m re-watching it, I’m noticing so many things.
A lot of people dislike this movie because they're upset/confused/angry that the murderer isn't caught in the end and Susie isn't found. But that's the devastatingly real part of it that I so greatly appreciate! In real life there often isn't a body for the family to bury, there are seldom answers as to what happened, and even more rarely a guilty person brought to justice. It's not satisfying because it's not meant to be. It's *meant* to hurt: It's the brutal murder of a 14 year old girl, whose body is never found and whose killer is never properly punished. Imagine the kind of open wound that leaves on all the people in her life. A wound that stays for years and years, and only slowly, very slowly, begins to heal with time. In the book the police found Susie's elbow in the blood-soaked ground. Her family still clung to hope, because you can live without your arm. It didn't mean she had to be dead! Little things like that hurt so damn much when you read them, but I understand it had to be left out for the PG rating, just like the horrible SA before Susie died. In the book it's also made clear that Susie has the choice of alerting Ray to the location of her body when she trades places with Ruth, and she chooses not to. She's been dead a long time at that point. Her family has come to terms with it and has slowly begun to heal. She chooses intimacy with Ray instead, because it was the one thing she regretted the most that she didn't get to experience. She took that for herself, and I applaud it. The most unjustifiable thing possible was done to her: her very life was robbed from her. That scene allowed Susie to take something warm and wonderful and loving back (a kiss in the film, coupling in the book). The film also cut Ruth's character down a ton. She has psychic abilities and sees glimpses of ghosts - Susie is her first. She dedicates her whole life to learning about all of them, and she writes down everything she encounters and experiences. When she trades places with Susie, she goes to Susie's Heaven and meets with all the girls and women who had their lives cut short. They tell her their stories so she can write them down, and she promises to never forget them. And she doesn't. As for Mr. Harvey's death, it's certainly not what he deserved, but the book does make it feel more drawn-out because the ghosts of his victims begin to haunt him. They ride in his car with him, watching him silently. They're always with him, he can't escape from them. And then in the end, an icicle and a fall. His body isn't found because he isn't important. Susie is important. Susie and Holly and all the other victims, Ruth and Ray, Lindsey and Buckley, her parents and grandma, *they're* the important ones. Susie reclaiming what she missed out on from life. All the girls getting to watch their murderer grow ever more haunted until he finally dies. Susie's family and friends building their lives around her absence, moving on but never forgetting. Lindsay and her boyfriend naming their first daughter Susie, in her memory. Those are all important. Mr. Harvey is not. It's not the movie ending people expect. It's not neatly wrapped up in a Hollywood package, leaving you assured that justice was had. It's not FAIR. Because life often isn't. That's why I love this movie, and this book. It shows us the awful, heartbreaking reality of a murdered 14 year-old girl in the 70s. And it's perfect.
What??? This whole comment is mind-boggling. I read the book at least four or five times over the years and I don't remember ANY of that, except for her and Ray being more intimate. Wild. I'll have to try to find it and reread it.
I was 13 when I watched this movie completely unware of the plot and when I tell you it has traumatized me to the core I'm not joking. This is the first time in years that I'm watching it only because of y'all
So, in the book it is very clear that Susie was raped before she was killed. She wants her body to be found and justice to happen, which is why she is stuck in limbo. Her taking over Ruth’s body and getting the kiss is important because she CHOOSES to let her body go- she knows her body is going into the sink hole and will never be found. The sister chooses to allow her parents to reconcile, because while justice is nice, she sees how much fighting for justice hurt her dad over the years. I really struggle because I understand what the writer was going for, it just doesn’t feel good. Even the killers death at the end doesn’t feel great, because it is random. We WANT him to go to jail, to be caught, to have the dad or the sister take justice into their own hands, but we also know that would only hurt them. I don’t necessarily agree with those choices, but I can empathize with them. The “mystery” or search for the killer isn’t the point- it is all about Susie trying to come to terms with how violent her death is and how the death impacts the people- the dads obsessive, the mom is in denial, and the daughter is caught in the middle.
Yes, this story wasn’t about justice. It was about Susie’s pov, how her death effected everyone, and how acceptance came be freeing as that’s what allows her to move on to the afterlife. I thought the killer’s death in the novel was more karmic because he gets hit by an icicle (which Susie deemed the perfect murder weapon), and falls to his death in a ravine which is low-key how he got rid of Susie’s body.
Even Stanley Tucci looked uncomfortable at the Academy Awards when they showed footage of him in this movie for his award nomination. Great performance.
@@windandcloudshadow158 I agree. His acting was good, and he even spoke to Soarise’s parents to let them know he was ok because they were uncomfortable with her acting in so close proximity to an older man.
one of THE most depressing movies ever but also one of the best. the ending makes me so angry but its also very realistic too. the bad guy doesnt always get caught and the victims dont always get justice.
I remember after watching this movie I was so f****** depressed it made me fall in love with saoirse Ronan I kept looking her up to see if she was okay smh. This movie affected me.
I can't praise Stanley Tucci enough. He really is a terrific actor. He's in countless movies, but always makes his characters memorable. Mostly funny sidekicks. But he really can act anything. This movie here definitely proves that. Worth checking out are also America's Sweethearts, The Devil Wears Prada, The Core (forgettable movie, but he's great in it), Shall We Dance? or the mini-series "Citadel", where he's the highlight once again.
1:03:51 - This film was based on a Novel, a lot of people don’t realize that. If you read or read the novel, this film is perfect. Shot for shot. The reason you don’t get to pass time here on earth is because the book is a story told by Susie Salmon. It is all, ALL, from her point of view. This isn’t a murder mystery, this is an emotional drama. It is a story of her death, and her eventually becoming okay with the fact that she is gone. Saoirse Ronan is the number one on the cast listing. Her role was essential.
I've noticed that they seem to get confused when movies they watch on this channel have time skips or irregular scenes. I'd hate to see them trying to react to the Dark series.
@@netflixandchinchilla Well said and I think they`re over-analyzing this movie. Referring to the afterlife scenes as fantastical is also amusing. Are those scenes fantastical or just a reality we haven`t experienced yet ? Food for thought.
@@paulcarfantan6688That's a paradoxical question. Fantastical is often used in reference to fantasy but it can also be used in reference to reality. Many would describe Disney Wotld as fantastical. Some may not. Perception is subjective. Either way it is perceived, Disney World does exist in reality. The same is true of other manmade structures and natural wonders. It can also be used to describe artwork, personality, etc.. Please don't take any offense. It's entirely possible I am missing something or simply misunderstanding your intended point. I'm just not following why their use of "fantastical" is particularly amusing when it is contextually appropriate language.
When I was in the 3rd grade, my very best friend was abducted and murdered. We’ve never found her remains and no one has ever been held accountable. It was common knowledge that a man from Tammy’s neighborhood was her killer. But not enough evidence and he left the state. He ended up getting arrested in Florida for the assault of another young girl. While in prison he got very sick and everyone hoped for a death bed confession…even if he said nothing more than where her remains were. But he didn’t. He took that with him when he died. We’ve never found her..Tammy Belanger was kidnapped 37 years ago from Exeter NH. If anyone knows anything please contact the Exeter NH police…I miss her still, and I cry for her still, even after 37 years
I’m sorry for your loss and pain but i know she is up in heaven watching over you and smiling and wishing you to live a long and happy life and that the killer is suffering and paying for his actions and for not only taking her life but ruining many others. My love and support for you and her is strong. I hope she can find peace and comfort in heaven❤😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
The book goes much more in depth with what happened to Susie-it’s so disturbing. It was really interesting how it they chose to make her a ghost as she escaped. A lot of times, when you’re experiencing a trauma (like SA), you disassociate and “escape” to not deal with what you’re experiencing. Susie escaped in the literal sense as a ghost.
@@Hustwick Unfortunately trauma along with the circumstances of the attack can cause someone to mis-identify a perpetrator. It's why witness testimonies are usually taken with a grain of salt. Emphasis on usually. I moreso blame the prosecution who "pinned" a bunch of faulty evidence on the accused man in court. It's terrible that an innocent guy got convicted for years and the real rapist got away with it.
As someone who has experienced trauma, there are a few things I can't remember and I know it's because my brain is just protecting me of it. Like I had no idea for years that I made an actual suicide attempt. I literally can't remember, just the days leading up to it. I only found out because my mom told me since the incident happened in school (I was 11). I am doing fine now btw, but I did have a very rough childhood.
Also the icicle has a lot of meaning in the book. Susie says early on that if she ever unalived someone, she would use an icicle - because the evidence would melt. So the icicle at the end is literally Susie getting her revenge.
40:50, "Can he hear that?" Yes. Yes he can. Remember that in the real world, there isn't music playing at critical moments to highlight things. He is in his completely empty house in the 70's so there is likely nothing extra running in the house and he has no pets. The slightest noise that isn't a heater or refrigerator kicking on, is going to stand out. When you live in one place, there are noises that happen often that you get used to. That secret spot would make that same noise every time he uses it, that you can see his look, he knows exactly what made that noise. My house makes a very specific noise when the front door opens, by vibrating a wire in the wall all the way to my room. No matter how hard you try to, if that door moves, it alerts me.
This movie makes me not want to have kids, just to not have them go through anything like this. Its legitimately terrifying to imagine happening to your child. Fantastic film, glad to see you guys react to it!
oh my goodness, i say the same thing and people think i'm crazy! like??? i would never want another human being to experience the most horrifying things in this world and some people just don't understand that.
Gotta remember, this is a time where there was no phones or tracking no nothing not that it helps. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t but I get it.
Yes. I get that. I have a child, and this is always a fear as it happens all the time. I don't trust people. So much things about daycare workers have come across my feed. Two toddlers get trapped under a car when a car crashed into the building. A case of a daycare worker breaking a toddlers arm, another worker left a baby in a crib all day and only returned right before the parent, needless to say the baby passed away. And another case wear a 8 or 10 year old girl stepped on a babys head, that baby past two. It's so sad that people like this exist. Their the worse kind to hurt innocent kids.
@@oceankuhn7215 see - these are all things that i would obviously be deathly afraid happening and putting a child of mine through. i know it was hard for my mother with me, so these are all things that i would not be able to stop worrying about. i just can’t stand the thought of my hypothetical kid even getting a slight paper cut and crying because it would just really hurt me a lot just to see them cry or hurt over something as small as a paper cut. i know that last part probably sounds a bit crazy, but i just can’t see a tiny human being in pain, especially if that tiny human was my own. i just wish people understood and accepted this concept/reasoning for not wanting to have children a little more.
The book is absolutely brutal. I cried through the whole damn thing. It makes me kind of grateful that they softened so much of it for the movie version.
Stanley Tucci said he regrets playing this role because it was such a tough experience. Apparently he even tried to back out of the role before filming as he was unsure to play a murderer.. I completely understand that.
Ridiculously, overly dramatic gibberish spewed by a clearly affected 'actor'. Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Perkins both played hideous serial killers and never once pretended it was anything other than a role.
@rnw2739 Then again, Hopkins' mother was afraid of him for a while, after seeing him play Lector. You can never account for the human psyche and what exactly can set us off or disturb us.
@joshuagross3151 Yeah ok.... Hopkins' mum was having a joke but don't let that distract you.... even though I was talking about Hopkins' himself but never mind...
Remember that this is a story being told by a 14yr old dead girl. Suzie is caught in a place where there is no time and reality is absent. She dips in and out of our plane, but she doesn't understand it. She idealizes Ray because she's 14. Adult emotions are unknown and uninteresting to her. She knows love and she feels a sort of rage, though the details of these things are hazy. Suzie is no longer truly invested in our reality. What she really wants is for us to know is HER. She was sweet and funny and she existed and then she didn't. It's an absolutely heartbreaking movie.
The focus on the hat early in the movie is because in the book it’s stuffed into her mouth as she’s in that underground lair he built while he’s attacking her.
Did he just kill her? Or did he SA her too? I never read the book. And sometimes they leave a lot of stuff out because it wouldn't go over well in audiences.
As you can tell from the other replies, much of the book’s graphic content was cut or not filmed in order to get a PG-13 rating. This changed the target audience from adults (whom the book was intended for) to pre-teens and young adults.
At 5:03 it always gives me chills knowing the director purposefully put Tuccis character there. Watching back you see him stalking Suzie but for the first viewing it's just another guy, shows perspective of how a stranger can be so evil yet no one know.
The book does a much better job exploring the individual ways Susie’s family members cope with her death. The mom does pretty poorly, she has an affair with the main detective on the case, and Lindsay finds out about it. She then leaves the family for years, regardless of the living children who still need her. It also goes more into what happens to Ray and Ruth over the years.
I read the book in high school, and man was it an experience. It's written so well, and even more heart breaking than the movie because her death scene is described in detail.
The crazy thing about this book is that the author was SA in college I believe. Probably why we all feel the sadness and trauma so deeply. However there was a man she claimed was her attacker... he went away for 16 years but was let out of prison. Turns out she was mistaken. Not sure if her actual attacker was caught.
@@misslady582he wasn’t. It’s awful- she was definitely assaulted; the hospital and police reports from that night are horrific. But the wrong man got his life ruined and he can’t get that back…and now, of course, there are people out for her blood saying she did it on purpose etc.
I didn’t think the book was well written, especially the part where Susie enters Ruth’s body and she has sex with her crush, but it’s still a good story, and I think the actors did it justice on film. Who ever was in charge of casting did a good job, and the set looked really good.
I watched this movie in theaters with my little sister. I was 18 at the time and my sister was 15. Two things I remember about seeing this movie 1)the auditorium was freezing. It came out in January and the heating must have been on the fritz. And 2)Toward the end of the movie my little sister whispered I'll be back, I have to go to the washroom. Without thinking I panicked and grabbed her arm. We both looked at each other in the eyes. It took me a moment to process she wasn't in danger and I reluctantly let her go. But I couldn't focus on the movie until she was sitting next to me again where I could guarantee her safety with my own eyes and ears.
You just described what it's like to be a parent. I only have one son and movies like this...stories on the news continue to ease my mind about not having more. Theres just to much evil in the world. Smh..I cant. I wont.
@@koygoddess7080 I don't have any kids but that's because I cant afford any, I think if I had the financial means I would. There's a lot of evil in the world yes but there's so much good too.
I have never in my life been so tense in a movie as I was with the scene of the sister in the house. My God, I couldn’t BREATHE the first time I watched it! And yes…it’s every parent’s worst nightmare. I have three kids & remember an incident where I couldn’t find my daughter. It was only a few minutes but it felt like eternity. I was freezing cold and shaking but it’s also like just a burning, sheer terror.
She wrote that all the victims are in heaven together, it's like real victims finding solace and comfort in each other, and that's incredible. This my favorite movie because its realistically heartbreaking.
In the book, the dad is almost immediately obsessed with proving Harvey is the killer, and never wavers from it. As opposed to here where it takes him longer to figure out it was him.
Tucci asked for a lot of prosthetic make-up etc because although he wanted the role, he didn't want to be recognised as the character because he was so abhorrent.
Stanley Tucci is one of my favorite actors, so watching him play a role like this really made my stomach twist. But that just shows what a great actor he is.
In Alice Sebold's original novel, a disturbing rape scene is recounted in great detail, an experience that Sebold had as a young woman. Writer, Producer, and Director Peter Jackson chose to omit this section of the story, feeling that the re-enactment of the ordeal would have not just overwhelmed this movie, but been too traumatic a sequence for the young Saoirse Ronan to endure. Alice Sebold reportedly disagreed with this omission. Stanley Tucci, for his part, claimed that it was difficult enough for him to play scenes in which George was thinking about molesting Susie, and that he never would have agreed to perform an actual rape scene.
It’s is interesting that she insisted it and yet turned out to be lying about her own experience. A bit odd that she wanted to have that be seen on the silver screen or to have a young actor in that position
watched this movie a little too young and it definitely traumatized me. but i’m glad i did because it stuck with me. then watching it when i was older i was able to pick up on a lot more. also was definitely scared of stanley tucci for a long time because this whole. he’s popped up in nightmares when i was younger. i never read the book but i would like to now..
Damn, imagine if Stanley Tucci was your next-door neighbour in real life. I mean I`m a dude and it would still freak me out. Talk about insomnia, yikes.
I had no idea y'all haven't seen it, and I'm glad you did! This movie is an experience. Not necessarily an enjoyable one, but it's always very cathartic to watch. I always tune in when it's on tv. Its vibes also somewhat remind me of My Sister's Keeper.
I feel bad about it now, but I had a neighbor who looks EXACTLY like the murderer in this movie. He even has the same glasses, super friendly/handy man type always working on a car in his driveway so he would talk to us when we walked by. My siblings and I were terrified of him 😭
My understanding is that Ryan Gosling was replaced because Jackson realized he looked too young for the role (remember when this movie was filmed). He gained the weight in an attempt to look older, but Jackson decided it still wasn’t enough. Great reactions and discussion!
This movie and Hanna sold me on Saoirse Ronan, made me watch almost all her movies, had some other good ones like Byzantium and Brooklyn .. love the actress
I remember feeling absolutely deflated, extremely emotional, disturbed, and overwhelmed by how ***stunning*** this film is. It is one of those films you can not watch often, because it's way too scary and real. I think the ending where the Sister Lindsey is holding the book and her Mother has returned. It is basically saying to be present and enjoy those important moments of light and love with family. Even when the lack of urgency to reveal the evidence is very frustrating, I get it. It wasn't right in that moment. Also, when Susie is having her last impactful moment before crossing over, she chose to have her 1st kiss with Ray. Instead of choosing to have her body revealed at the sink pit (my perspective from only knowing the film). Again it is light and love... instead of pain, resentment, anger, revenge, or even justice. It's letting go. It focuses on precious moments, instead of succumbing to darkness and reliving trauma. It's a very spiritual film. I can not get over the visuals throughout, especially the inbetween. 💖
I actually remembered the date as it passed. It felt weird because she was never real, but it stuck with me. She was the same age as my father, who is now sixty-four. To think that if this were real, Ray, Ruth, Lindsey, Buckley etc. would probably all still be alive. Even Abigail and Jack may still be alive, albeit in their 90s (which makes me wonder how family reunions work in Sebold's version of Heaven... does every dead person get trapped in the In-Between? Would Susie meet her family there and lead them to Heaven like Holly did for her? Would she interact with their elderly ghosts while still in the form of a 14-year-old girl?)
25:00 the oats and eggs are a real old school thing I was blown away to see it in a movie it’s an extreme grandma move. It’s that old school self care on the cheap at home - which is rarely seen today as frequently granny methods and diys instead of purchases. (The oats are for skin inflammation and psoriasis- eczema etc) (eggs usually the whites would be used in a wash/rinse because it basically coats the hair and protects it making it look shiny/healthy/helping with breakages.) There was also an absurd amount of murders in Pa along with serial killers so the fact that it’s so Pa focused is wild and semi accurate to the location - even if it’s fictional.
Watched this movie when I was younger and never realized this was directed by Peter Jackson. After you guys mentioned it, I could not stop seeing the LOTR/Hobbit camera moves. This movie shattered me as a young girl because i watched it after reading the book which gives a LOT more context to what happened to Suzie and takes place in PA where I am from so it was horrifying!!
This was a challenging book to read as a teen when it came out in 2002. …then came the movie. In this role, Stanley Tucci is mind blowingly terrifying beyond words. The realest nightmare bc people like him actually exist
I watched this in theaters as a teen and then never watched it again because of how it made me feel. I hated how he essentially gets away with it but also that happens so often irl. Great movie, would never watch again.
This movie is so depressing. I remember watching it for the first time it broke me to the point I was sobbing. The fact Stanley Tucci plays the pedo/murderer so well I didn’t even realize it was him until years later. They made him unrecognizable.
Yeah one of the problems with this being a book to movie adaptation is how rushed, random or disconnected it feels at times. There’s a lot going on with the characters in the book over the course of several years that a movie doesn’t have time to cover. I do appreciate that the gruesomeness was dialed way down for the movie
By the time she takes over Ruths body in the book, her body was already in the sinkhole. I always thought changing it to this was to imply she didn't care about getting revenge anymore.
While on one side, yes, everyone grieves differently, to me, the movie is suggesting that Susie’s influence from beyond the grave is what made things escalate to where they did. Now, I know better than to make a claim like that without evidence to back it up, so let me offer you this: Holly warns her from the get go that staying in the in between and not letting go, interacting with the living, is something you’re not supposed to do. Susie touched Ruth’s hand, and now she has a connection to her. Probably how she was able to possess her body. But as it turns out, Holly was right. #1: The dad doesn’t become obsessed with finding Susie’s killer until Susie connects with him through the candle’s reflection in the window. This is why the mom keeps screaming for him to stop, and just let it go. The mom never really has this connection with Susie, and really is trying to move on, but Susie connecting with the dad is what’s keeping him hell bent on looking for justice. #2 The scene where the dad chases Harvey through the corn field with a bat and almost gets beaten to death. That only happened because once again, Susie reached out through the afterlife to send him a sign that Harvey was the killer, in the form of one of Harvey’s dead flowers blooming in front of his eyes. This is actually even more significant than the other one to me, because this is ultimately what makes Susie realize what Holly had been trying to tell her all along: Just her being here and refusing to move on is exactly what’s preventing everyone else from healing and moving on, to where they’ll even let everything fall apart because of it. It’s this that makes her finally accept she has to move on, once and for all, even if it means never coming back.
Those dollhouses freak me out. They're not just dollhouses. They're exact replicas of real houses. So he'd know exactly where his victims were at all times.
5:05 - 5:08 George (Stanley Tucci) walks past the window, obviously stalking Suzie.. I never noticed before.. a small detail, you wouldn't notice until you watched closer a second time..
I read somewhere that a lot of Rachel Weisz' scenes were cut and I feel like removing the mother from the plot kinda takes away a lot of the feelings and grief. but oh well
I would not say she was a super important character, but she along with the other family members provided perspective, and she displayed one of the ways people deal with grief. I think more scenes with here would have added more to the film and provided more of a mother perspective, but because she’s more of a side character I can see why her scenes were cut.
Mark Whalbergs was originally supposed to be Ryan Gosling. But Peter Jackson replaced him because he didn't approve of the weight he'd put on for the role. Ryan Gosling was drinking melted tubs of Hagen Daz, because he believed the father should weigh 210 pounds. But I have to say Mark Whalberg was fantastic in this film.
I remember reading the book, crying my eyes out in middle school because this subject was so new to me. It was in my local library. Finding out they had a movie Years later and watching it brought back all those tears. The book is so beautiful and I always recommend people to try to read it- especially since some scenes didn’t happen in the movie. It’s so heart breaking!
It really makes me want to reform the justice system for things like this. People are hurt by monsters. Those monsters deserve to be held accountable by never allowed to enjoy life ever again.
I read the book in 6th grade which….her death is super graphic and detailed. Page 11-12 i believe. So traumatizing but by that age i was already molested so reality is, kids get molested and r4ped so maybe i was too young for it but i was also too young to be molested.
Having cried my way through the book half a dozen times, just hearing "My name is Salmon, ( like the first ) First name, Susie. Makes me burst into tears. Cause I know what's coming.
Extremely similar situation happened to my friend when I was in middle school. There’s a song about her and everything. I can’t watch this movie without breaking down
5:08 Apparently in this scene, you can see the killer 4 different times. Sitting at a table. On the left. Just just walked right past the window. Outside the record store when Ray walks in
I went to see this in the cinema when it came out, knowing nothing about it except that the visuals appealed to me. I took my girlfriend on a Friday night, went in in a great mood, and came out like 2 hours later just.... defeated haha
This movie was shot so great. Watched this when I was younger and it’s so good and so sad Damn, I’m already crying. Thinking about Susie missing out on her life, the parents searching and the worry, along with her sister. It’s all heartbreaking
I remember reading the book (even more fucked up) when I was in middle school & then watching the movie…its such a beautiful but tragic film. also the book really does delve into the family’s grief but i’m not sure the movie would’ve been pg13
That almost not quite quote is another reference to the book. And it's even sadder. A couple finds her charm bracelet. One of them says, "The girl this belongs to is all grown up now.". And Susie narrates, Almost. Not quite.
Notice how in the ending she sounds more subdued? Resigned? Instead of happy-ish like in the beginning? In the beginning when she says, "Like the fish.", it sounds cute. Like a kid. But when she says it again in the end, it's like she's not even trying to sound happy anymore.
I'm studying this book for my English A-Level course, which is part of the reason I'm here. I'm impressed with how many of the important details that we cover in lesson are highly emphasised in the movie! ❤
This movie and story is local to me in multiple ways…the movie was filmed near my middle school (while I was still there) and the story is based in the town I grew up in. I even read the book later on in high school and then saw the movie after. Talk about full circle. The whole story is sad and so surreal.
I saw this twice in the theatres. I loved it so much. I would tell others to see it but they said they didn't want to watch a movie of a child being murdered. I'm Buddhist and was studying it very hard when this movie came out. So I think I saw it at a different perspective than most people did.
This movie really made me cry as a kid, such a horrifying yet realistic story told in such a visually beautiful way. saoirse ronan has always been an incredible actress. I never looked at stanley tucci the same after this role 😖
The book this is based on is one of my favourites. There's a lot of plot & characters cut out for the film which I know is for the running time but it's still a good film.
I remember when the boy Adam Walsh was taken, and later his dad created that tv show to catch other criminals. Even sadder: I lived in Pantego, TX as a child, and behind my neighborhood was a park. Veterans Park. It was mostly woods with a small plateau and a cavern area with a few caves, but the caves weren't deep. Anyway, my friends and I used to explore the woods constantly, especially when we first discovered the cavernous area. It looked like the Grand Canyon to us. Several years later, long after I moved away, a story came on the news. It was about a missing girl. She had disappeared while playing at a parking lot. She was found some time later in a creek in Veterans Park, deceased. Her name... was... Amber Hagerman. The AMBER Alert was created in her honor.
I saw this movie in my early teens I think? I just remember how it made me feel then. But now as a father, I understand the father’s perspective in all of this as well. Makes it that much more heartbreaking to watch
I remember first time i watched this movie. I was home alone and sick and watch some comedy at HBO, i was 11 years old. When the comedy ended, this movie starts. It was about midday, i strill doesnt understand that this type of movie was in this part of the day without some warning. I watched it all and was scared as hell, i was never scared from horror movies but this one... I was shaking with fear from it and I was terribly cold. I checked all windows and doors twice, wrapped myself in duvets and blankets and listening every sound in the totally silent house. I also remember that later I started to look for something else on the TV channels, but in the end I played the DVD Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Depp and anime movie Spirited away. Till these days i had weird feeling about this movie but also kind of love it. In retrospect, I found out that the director wanted to shoot the rape scene, but the villain actor didn't allow it so that the actress wouldn't be traumatized. According to him, it was already too complicated and demanding for her. In my opinion the movie was traumatizing enough and doesnt need explicit rape scene.
My sister was 16 when the neighbor murdered her. He had also killed other women. While we technically did get her body back, it was burned beyond recognition. Identified by dna. When someone does like that you don’t see the mourning that you typically do. It’s different. I don’t know why I continue to watch this movie because I cry every time, but I want to feel like just like Suzie, she’s still with me somewhere.
One of my all time favorite movies since seeing it the first time, took me 3 rewatches and getting older to actually understand and i mean understand this movie and it will forever stick with me
At the end when the icicle hits him on the head does anyone remember the scene earlier where Suzy saw the icicle hanging on the tree branches in the spirit world in the woods?
Sad but the author of this book, Alice Sebold (writing a memoir titled "Lucky"), made an innocent man jailed for 16 years, only recently that he has been exonerated of his conviction...
I'm not sure why that's relevant to the movie. Less than 1% of reports result in convictions where I'm from. It happens all the time. People who do these things are walking among us. If they didn't have enough evidence to convict anyone then technically it still could have been him. People cast doubt on people who come forward all the time, no one pays attention to the fact that hundreds of thousands of people come forward and nothing is done about it. That's a much bigger problem in my opinion.
@@Lilah1848 It's relevant to the movie because she made millions off of the back of a man who she falsely accused of rape. He's a fucking human being, you fucking monster. Just bc convictions don't often happen, doesn't mean an innocent man in jail should make you happy.
@@Voidcolded She said two guys looked identical in the lineup. It's very unfortunate, I wish it didn't happen that way. But number 1, no one can prove who did it still till this day. He says it wasn't him, he's been exonerated, but lack of evidence doesn't mean 100% innocence. That's how most of these people get away with it - lack of evidence to convict, then they tell people they're innocent. And number 2, like I said, we actually have hundreds of thousands of reports that never see a conviction. So we're focusing on the wrong things. R-kits sit in police stations for years, blame the flawed system, not a woman desperately seeking justice.
My best friend and I used to watch this movie every Friday for like 3months straight breaking down every little aspect and detail. He’s now my partner and we have 2kids. I haven’t thought of this movie in years!!! I’m gona remind him in the morning. I’m in tears. Thanx guys for unearthing these memories.
Two important things I think the two of you are glossing over or are just not getting: 1. This movie is through the point of view of a teenage girl, Suzie. She is the focus; her cringe heightened crush on the poet, her sparkly rose coloured glasses view of her world, her disassociation and avoidance of accepting her death via the fantasy world etc. Her feelings and evolving emotional point of view are what dictate the pacing/visuals for the entire film. That's why it shifts from washed out haze to ethereal dreamstate to darkly dramatic and back again. It's our connection to Suzie's emotional state as she comes to grips with what happened to her. 2. Unless you have been through tragedy like this or SA, you will never truly understand why the very strong choice to "not fully land" was made. Families completely crumble when faced with acute trauma (the mom leaving, messy grandma coming in to help). Having answers/getting justice is so incredibly rare. The reality is you are left with loose ends, questions, and wounds. I deeply appreciated the artistic choice to make the audience feel as close to victimized as possible; to not tie everything up in a pretty bow. Leaving us feeling unresolved and hollow forces a special type of empathy to emerge.
I've only been able to watch this the one time it absolutely did something to me. It was a great performance but I was way too disturbed by it to be able to watch it again.
First 2 min in my thought was "Oh no... you guys have no idea what this movie is about do you.." I cried my eyes out when I was around 12 years old just by the last quote susie says.
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Nope. That ending had me mad, so i'm just going to drop a Like and keep it moving.
Have you seen Heath ledger's last movie The imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus..... great film and johnny Depp is in it
"What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams is a must for anyone on the payroll who hasn't seen it lol 🙂
Can you guys react to fanfictasia penultimategame part 1 by artspear entertainment
I could be wrong but my thought on why the boy she liked seemed so unrealistic/perfect/unbelievable was because that was probably how she viewed him as a young girl experiencing her first love interest
But also, boys were better socialized back then. I was an 80s kid and my crushes wrote poetry and made mistakes for me in middle and high school.
In the book, she also mentioned that he was a Brit who seemed more mature than other boys around her.
@@lavinder11yeah, I haven’t read it in years but in the book he’s described as quite cultured and sophisticated several times. Very fond of classic literature and had traveled quite a bit.
The murderer's death scene was originally just him slipping and falling out of frame. Test audiences didn't like that it looked like a peaceful death for an awful person, so they added the sequence of him hitting all the stuff on the way down.
👏 the audience were right. I would have been dissapointed too. He needed a death like that, it implies that he got what was coming.
I remember screaming at the tv saying "Yessss FINALLY! You deserve every bit of that fall!". 😂
I wasn’t even satisfied with THAT to be honest. I would’ve much preferred a final destination type death 😂
I'm still not satisfied with that. I wanted him to be alive for a while and suffer.
I wonder if footage of his original death still exists somewhere?
@@brianamills6440 In the book, he is hit by an icicle and falls to his death, so the movie death was based on that.
The fact that the killer was hidden in plain sight stalking and watching her at 5:05 still gives me chills
Watched this movie a few times and NEVER recognized that
OMG well spotted!
That's sadly more common than you might think 😔
I literally ran to the comments after I noticed that. This movie traumatized me, so I never really re-watched it. And now that I’m re-watching it, I’m noticing so many things.
A lot of people dislike this movie because they're upset/confused/angry that the murderer isn't caught in the end and Susie isn't found. But that's the devastatingly real part of it that I so greatly appreciate! In real life there often isn't a body for the family to bury, there are seldom answers as to what happened, and even more rarely a guilty person brought to justice. It's not satisfying because it's not meant to be. It's *meant* to hurt: It's the brutal murder of a 14 year old girl, whose body is never found and whose killer is never properly punished. Imagine the kind of open wound that leaves on all the people in her life. A wound that stays for years and years, and only slowly, very slowly, begins to heal with time.
In the book the police found Susie's elbow in the blood-soaked ground. Her family still clung to hope, because you can live without your arm. It didn't mean she had to be dead! Little things like that hurt so damn much when you read them, but I understand it had to be left out for the PG rating, just like the horrible SA before Susie died. In the book it's also made clear that Susie has the choice of alerting Ray to the location of her body when she trades places with Ruth, and she chooses not to. She's been dead a long time at that point. Her family has come to terms with it and has slowly begun to heal. She chooses intimacy with Ray instead, because it was the one thing she regretted the most that she didn't get to experience. She took that for herself, and I applaud it. The most unjustifiable thing possible was done to her: her very life was robbed from her. That scene allowed Susie to take something warm and wonderful and loving back (a kiss in the film, coupling in the book).
The film also cut Ruth's character down a ton. She has psychic abilities and sees glimpses of ghosts - Susie is her first. She dedicates her whole life to learning about all of them, and she writes down everything she encounters and experiences. When she trades places with Susie, she goes to Susie's Heaven and meets with all the girls and women who had their lives cut short. They tell her their stories so she can write them down, and she promises to never forget them. And she doesn't.
As for Mr. Harvey's death, it's certainly not what he deserved, but the book does make it feel more drawn-out because the ghosts of his victims begin to haunt him. They ride in his car with him, watching him silently. They're always with him, he can't escape from them. And then in the end, an icicle and a fall. His body isn't found because he isn't important. Susie is important. Susie and Holly and all the other victims, Ruth and Ray, Lindsey and Buckley, her parents and grandma, *they're* the important ones. Susie reclaiming what she missed out on from life. All the girls getting to watch their murderer grow ever more haunted until he finally dies. Susie's family and friends building their lives around her absence, moving on but never forgetting. Lindsay and her boyfriend naming their first daughter Susie, in her memory. Those are all important. Mr. Harvey is not.
It's not the movie ending people expect. It's not neatly wrapped up in a Hollywood package, leaving you assured that justice was had. It's not FAIR. Because life often isn't. That's why I love this movie, and this book. It shows us the awful, heartbreaking reality of a murdered 14 year-old girl in the 70s. And it's perfect.
This was so well written and spot on
Dang, I’ve always hated the ending but I love what you wrote. It’s gives me a whole new perspective and understanding and I can appreciate that.
amazing comment
I couldnt have said it any better. :)
What??? This whole comment is mind-boggling. I read the book at least four or five times over the years and I don't remember ANY of that, except for her and Ray being more intimate. Wild. I'll have to try to find it and reread it.
I was 13 when I watched this movie completely unware of the plot and when I tell you it has traumatized me to the core I'm not joking. This is the first time in years that I'm watching it only because of y'all
Same, I was young and didn’t know what the movie was about when I saw it. I was so sad after :(
I was around 10 and you just literally took this comment from my brain😭
Same exact story as you.
Same here
I was 10 & same. Even seeing the thumbnail made my heart drop. Idk if I’m going to be able to watch the reaction, but maybe I’ll try like all of you
So, in the book it is very clear that Susie was raped before she was killed. She wants her body to be found and justice to happen, which is why she is stuck in limbo. Her taking over Ruth’s body and getting the kiss is important because she CHOOSES to let her body go- she knows her body is going into the sink hole and will never be found. The sister chooses to allow her parents to reconcile, because while justice is nice, she sees how much fighting for justice hurt her dad over the years. I really struggle because I understand what the writer was going for, it just doesn’t feel good. Even the killers death at the end doesn’t feel great, because it is random. We WANT him to go to jail, to be caught, to have the dad or the sister take justice into their own hands, but we also know that would only hurt them. I don’t necessarily agree with those choices, but I can empathize with them. The “mystery” or search for the killer isn’t the point- it is all about Susie trying to come to terms with how violent her death is and how the death impacts the people- the dads obsessive, the mom is in denial, and the daughter is caught in the middle.
Yes, this story wasn’t about justice. It was about Susie’s pov, how her death effected everyone, and how acceptance came be freeing as that’s what allows her to move on to the afterlife. I thought the killer’s death in the novel was more karmic because he gets hit by an icicle (which Susie deemed the perfect murder weapon), and falls to his death in a ravine which is low-key how he got rid of Susie’s body.
Ive never read the book but i always thought that it was obvious that she was raped? I didnt know people would struggle to get that.
@@MeLoveCoconutsI don't think it's that nobody gets it, I think it's that a lot of people who watched the movie simply haven't read the book
Even Stanley Tucci looked uncomfortable at the Academy Awards when they showed footage of him in this movie for his award nomination. Great performance.
I remember that! He couldn’t even look at the screen.
He’s admitted he “hated” playing the part, he couldn’t shake the character fast enough when filming ended.
I think he deserved the Award.
@@windandcloudshadow158 I agree. His acting was good, and he even spoke to Soarise’s parents to let them know he was ok because they were uncomfortable with her acting in so close proximity to an older man.
…or maybe that’s what he _wanted_ us to think? 🤔
one of THE most depressing movies ever but also one of the best. the ending makes me so angry but its also very realistic too. the bad guy doesnt always get caught and the victims dont always get justice.
I mean, in a way, he got caught.
...by which I mean gravity.
more like the bad guy almost never caught and victims almost never get justice. especially sa victims.
I remember after watching this movie I was so f****** depressed it made me fall in love with saoirse Ronan I kept looking her up to see if she was okay smh. This movie affected me.
In someway she did get Justice, karma caught up to him and his ending resulted in also dying
I can't praise Stanley Tucci enough. He really is a terrific actor. He's in countless movies, but always makes his characters memorable. Mostly funny sidekicks. But he really can act anything. This movie here definitely proves that. Worth checking out are also America's Sweethearts, The Devil Wears Prada, The Core (forgettable movie, but he's great in it), Shall We Dance? or the mini-series "Citadel", where he's the highlight once again.
Yea he is he played this part so well even though he said he this was his worst experience on acting because he hated the character he had to play
Thank you for mentioning The Core. 😂 He is so good in that one.
he’s also fantastic in “easy A” and the hunger games
The hunger games
Let’s not forget Beethoven
1:03:51 - This film was based on a Novel, a lot of people don’t realize that. If you read or read the novel, this film is perfect. Shot for shot. The reason you don’t get to pass time here on earth is because the book is a story told by Susie Salmon. It is all, ALL, from her point of view. This isn’t a murder mystery, this is an emotional drama. It is a story of her death, and her eventually becoming okay with the fact that she is gone. Saoirse Ronan is the number one on the cast listing. Her role was essential.
Almost all movies are based on books
@@meggo329Please read their comment more carefully.
I've noticed that they seem to get confused when movies they watch on this channel have time skips or irregular scenes. I'd hate to see them trying to react to the Dark series.
@@netflixandchinchilla Well said and I think they`re over-analyzing this movie. Referring to the afterlife scenes as fantastical is also amusing. Are those scenes fantastical or just a reality we haven`t experienced yet ? Food for thought.
@@paulcarfantan6688That's a paradoxical question.
Fantastical is often used in reference to fantasy but it can also be used in reference to reality.
Many would describe Disney Wotld as fantastical. Some may not. Perception is subjective. Either way it is perceived, Disney World does exist in reality. The same is true of other manmade structures and natural wonders. It can also be used to describe artwork, personality, etc..
Please don't take any offense. It's entirely possible I am missing something or simply misunderstanding your intended point. I'm just not following why their use of "fantastical" is particularly amusing when it is contextually appropriate language.
When I was in the 3rd grade, my very best friend was abducted and murdered. We’ve never found her remains and no one has ever been held accountable. It was common knowledge that a man from Tammy’s neighborhood was her killer. But not enough evidence and he left the state. He ended up getting arrested in Florida for the assault of another young girl. While in prison he got very sick and everyone hoped for a death bed confession…even if he said nothing more than where her remains were. But he didn’t. He took that with him when he died. We’ve never found her..Tammy Belanger was kidnapped 37 years ago from Exeter NH. If anyone knows anything please contact the Exeter NH police…I miss her still, and I cry for her still, even after 37 years
I'm very sorry about what happened to your friend. She did not deserve that.
im so sorry for your loss
but also
that man is going to HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
@@areeba7045 😂 oh he’s for sure burning in hell
I’m sorry for your loss and pain but i know she is up in heaven watching over you and smiling and wishing you to live a long and happy life and that the killer is suffering and paying for his actions and for not only taking her life but ruining many others. My love and support for you and her is strong. I hope she can find peace and comfort in heaven❤😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
@@ExcitedBlini-ng6jq that’s really beautiful and sweet. Thank you ❤️
The book goes much more in depth with what happened to Susie-it’s so disturbing. It was really interesting how it they chose to make her a ghost as she escaped. A lot of times, when you’re experiencing a trauma (like SA), you disassociate and “escape” to not deal with what you’re experiencing. Susie escaped in the literal sense as a ghost.
I saw the movie first and went out to buy the book. I remember crying over the pages. I don't think any other book made me cry that hard.
The author of the book sent an innocent man to prison for 16 years. She apologised to him after his release.
@@Hustwick Unfortunately trauma along with the circumstances of the attack can cause someone to mis-identify a perpetrator. It's why witness testimonies are usually taken with a grain of salt. Emphasis on usually. I moreso blame the prosecution who "pinned" a bunch of faulty evidence on the accused man in court. It's terrible that an innocent guy got convicted for years and the real rapist got away with it.
@@HustwickYes. Horrible.
As someone who has experienced trauma, there are a few things I can't remember and I know it's because my brain is just protecting me of it. Like I had no idea for years that I made an actual suicide attempt. I literally can't remember, just the days leading up to it. I only found out because my mom told me since the incident happened in school (I was 11). I am doing fine now btw, but I did have a very rough childhood.
Also the icicle has a lot of meaning in the book. Susie says early on that if she ever unalived someone, she would use an icicle - because the evidence would melt. So the icicle at the end is literally Susie getting her revenge.
40:50, "Can he hear that?"
Yes. Yes he can. Remember that in the real world, there isn't music playing at critical moments to highlight things. He is in his completely empty house in the 70's so there is likely nothing extra running in the house and he has no pets. The slightest noise that isn't a heater or refrigerator kicking on, is going to stand out. When you live in one place, there are noises that happen often that you get used to. That secret spot would make that same noise every time he uses it, that you can see his look, he knows exactly what made that noise. My house makes a very specific noise when the front door opens, by vibrating a wire in the wall all the way to my room. No matter how hard you try to, if that door moves, it alerts me.
This movie makes me not want to have kids, just to not have them go through anything like this. Its legitimately terrifying to imagine happening to your child. Fantastic film, glad to see you guys react to it!
oh my goodness, i say the same thing and people think i'm crazy! like??? i would never want another human being to experience the most horrifying things in this world and some people just don't understand that.
Gotta remember, this is a time where there was no phones or tracking no nothing not that it helps. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t but I get it.
Yes. I get that. I have a child, and this is always a fear as it happens all the time. I don't trust people. So much things about daycare workers have come across my feed. Two toddlers get trapped under a car when a car crashed into the building. A case of a daycare worker breaking a toddlers arm, another worker left a baby in a crib all day and only returned right before the parent, needless to say the baby passed away. And another case wear a 8 or 10 year old girl stepped on a babys head, that baby past two. It's so sad that people like this exist. Their the worse kind to hurt innocent kids.
@@oceankuhn7215 see - these are all things that i would obviously be deathly afraid happening and putting a child of mine through. i know it was hard for my mother with me, so these are all things that i would not be able to stop worrying about. i just can’t stand the thought of my hypothetical kid even getting a slight paper cut and crying because it would just really hurt me a lot just to see them cry or hurt over something as small as a paper cut. i know that last part probably sounds a bit crazy, but i just can’t see a tiny human being in pain, especially if that tiny human was my own. i just wish people understood and accepted this concept/reasoning for not wanting to have children a little more.
@@peachhazel7865 Yep, no Amber alerts back in 1973-74. I hope young adults know that.
The book is absolutely brutal. I cried through the whole damn thing. It makes me kind of grateful that they softened so much of it for the movie version.
Same. Literally every page got me
Stanley Tucci said he regrets playing this role because it was such a tough experience. Apparently he even tried to back out of the role before filming as he was unsure to play a murderer.. I completely understand that.
Ridiculously, overly dramatic gibberish spewed by a clearly affected 'actor'.
Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Perkins both played hideous serial killers and never once pretended it was anything other than a role.
@rnw2739 yes but he is also playing a child ☠️ and p3do
@rnw2739 Then again, Hopkins' mother was afraid of him for a while, after seeing him play Lector. You can never account for the human psyche and what exactly can set us off or disturb us.
@joshuagross3151 Yeah ok.... Hopkins' mum was having a joke but don't let that distract you.... even though I was talking about Hopkins' himself but never mind...
@@rnw2739 No, she was legitimately frightened from his performance.
Remember that this is a story being told by a 14yr old dead girl. Suzie is caught in a place where there is no time and reality is absent. She dips in and out of our plane, but she doesn't understand it. She idealizes Ray because she's 14. Adult emotions are unknown and uninteresting to her. She knows love and she feels a sort of rage, though the details of these things are hazy. Suzie is no longer truly invested in our reality. What she really wants is for us to know is HER. She was sweet and funny and she existed and then she didn't. It's an absolutely heartbreaking movie.
The focus on the hat early in the movie is because in the book it’s stuffed into her mouth as she’s in that underground lair he built while he’s attacking her.
Did he just kill her? Or did he SA her too? I never read the book. And sometimes they leave a lot of stuff out because it wouldn't go over well in audiences.
@@oceankuhn7215 He did SA her too and it was VERY graphic in the book
@@oceankuhn7215 he did SA her. Her death was very disturbing in the book.
@@oceankuhn7215he did and he stabbed her
As you can tell from the other replies, much of the book’s graphic content was cut or not filmed in order to get a PG-13 rating. This changed the target audience from adults (whom the book was intended for) to pre-teens and young adults.
At 5:03 it always gives me chills knowing the director purposefully put Tuccis character there. Watching back you see him stalking Suzie but for the first viewing it's just another guy, shows perspective of how a stranger can be so evil yet no one know.
Woah! Good eye.
I haven’t watched this movie in over a decade. Not because it’s not good, but because I still remember every moment of it and it still traumatizes me.
The book does a much better job exploring the individual ways Susie’s family members cope with her death. The mom does pretty poorly, she has an affair with the main detective on the case, and Lindsay finds out about it. She then leaves the family for years, regardless of the living children who still need her. It also goes more into what happens to Ray and Ruth over the years.
Ick
Yup I love the book
I hate the mom, like for real, i have always hated how selfish she can be when susies death is not about her but about the whole family
I had to stop reading at that point because I just couldn't. I'm glad they cut that out of the movie.
The scene where the cop gives the hat over to the mom makes me cry every single time.
Rachel did so well in that scene
I read the book in high school, and man was it an experience. It's written so well, and even more heart breaking than the movie because her death scene is described in detail.
The crazy thing about this book is that the author was SA in college I believe. Probably why we all feel the sadness and trauma so deeply. However there was a man she claimed was her attacker... he went away for 16 years but was let out of prison. Turns out she was mistaken. Not sure if her actual attacker was caught.
@misslady582 oh wow didn't know that!
@@misslady582he wasn’t. It’s awful- she was definitely assaulted; the hospital and police reports from that night are horrific. But the wrong man got his life ruined and he can’t get that back…and now, of course, there are people out for her blood saying she did it on purpose etc.
I didn’t think the book was well written, especially the part where Susie enters Ruth’s body and she has sex with her crush, but it’s still a good story, and I think the actors did it justice on film. Who ever was in charge of casting did a good job, and the set looked really good.
I watched this movie in theaters with my little sister. I was 18 at the time and my sister was 15. Two things I remember about seeing this movie 1)the auditorium was freezing. It came out in January and the heating must have been on the fritz. And 2)Toward the end of the movie my little sister whispered I'll be back, I have to go to the washroom. Without thinking I panicked and grabbed her arm. We both looked at each other in the eyes. It took me a moment to process she wasn't in danger and I reluctantly let her go. But I couldn't focus on the movie until she was sitting next to me again where I could guarantee her safety with my own eyes and ears.
You just described what it's like to be a parent. I only have one son and movies like this...stories on the news continue to ease my mind about not having more. Theres just to much evil in the world. Smh..I cant. I wont.
@@koygoddess7080 I don't have any kids but that's because I cant afford any, I think if I had the financial means I would. There's a lot of evil in the world yes but there's so much good too.
I have never in my life been so tense in a movie as I was with the scene of the sister in the house. My God, I couldn’t BREATHE the first time I watched it!
And yes…it’s every parent’s worst nightmare. I have three kids & remember an incident where I couldn’t find my daughter. It was only a few minutes but it felt like eternity. I was freezing cold and shaking but it’s also like just a burning, sheer terror.
Feel like your heart drops out. I pray for the safety of all children 🙏🏾
She wrote that all the victims are in heaven together, it's like real victims finding solace and comfort in each other, and that's incredible. This my favorite movie because its realistically heartbreaking.
In the book, the dad is almost immediately obsessed with proving Harvey is the killer, and never wavers from it. As opposed to here where it takes him longer to figure out it was him.
I’m a dad of daughters that are my everything, I can’t express the emotions this evokes . 💜
Stanley Tucci absolutely deserved his Oscar Nomination. Outstanding
Tucci asked for a lot of prosthetic make-up etc because although he wanted the role, he didn't want to be recognised as the character because he was so abhorrent.
Yeah we will remember him for sure
It definitely worked. Even though I can still tell it was him, I don't immediately think of this movie when thinking of him either
Odd, because I kept thinking he looked like Sam Rockwell throughout the movie.
She never calls him by name. Just "my murderer"
Stanley Tucci is one of my favorite actors, so watching him play a role like this really made my stomach twist. But that just shows what a great actor he is.
Do you find this movie underrated?
The movie is decent but i absolutely love the depiction of the Afterlife.
It's a masterpiece honestly
Yes
Yes 😢
Yes.
The heaven scene when all the girls meet each other gets me every single time 💔
Were they all victims of his!? I don't remember seeing the movie?
@@angelabowman1614Yes, they are :(
@@angelabowman1614 Yes, the book goes into detail where he met each girl, and how one of his victims was saved.
In Alice Sebold's original novel, a disturbing rape scene is recounted in great detail, an experience that Sebold had as a young woman. Writer, Producer, and Director Peter Jackson chose to omit this section of the story, feeling that the re-enactment of the ordeal would have not just overwhelmed this movie, but been too traumatic a sequence for the young Saoirse Ronan to endure. Alice Sebold reportedly disagreed with this omission. Stanley Tucci, for his part, claimed that it was difficult enough for him to play scenes in which George was thinking about molesting Susie, and that he never would have agreed to perform an actual rape scene.
It’s is interesting that she insisted it and yet turned out to be lying about her own experience. A bit odd that she wanted to have that be seen on the silver screen or to have a young actor in that position
@@Jojibri wasn't lying. Just accused the wrong guy.
@@Jojibri she was actually raped
@@Jojibrishe wasn’t lying she just accused the wrong person of doing she was still raped
@@samswayzie she came out and said “I truly wasn’t sure if it was him but I told myself it was and put it out of my mind”
If I remember correctly, the book expands on the family's grief a lot more than the movie, but that's probably just a time constraint issue.
watched this movie a little too young and it definitely traumatized me. but i’m glad i did because it stuck with me. then watching it when i was older i was able to pick up on a lot more. also was definitely scared of stanley tucci for a long time because this whole. he’s popped up in nightmares when i was younger. i never read the book but i would like to now..
Damn, imagine if Stanley Tucci was your next-door neighbour in real life. I mean I`m a dude and it would still freak me out. Talk about insomnia, yikes.
5:04
I never realized Tucci can be seen already stalking her through the window 😮
I had no idea y'all haven't seen it, and I'm glad you did! This movie is an experience. Not necessarily an enjoyable one, but it's always very cathartic to watch. I always tune in when it's on tv. Its vibes also somewhat remind me of My Sister's Keeper.
Unforgettable but not enjoyable indeed.
47:06 The girls reaction here, to me, was a way to show that public opinion on "friendly strangers" was starting to change.
I feel bad about it now, but I had a neighbor who looks EXACTLY like the murderer in this movie. He even has the same glasses, super friendly/handy man type always working on a car in his driveway so he would talk to us when we walked by. My siblings and I were terrified of him 😭
Read a book called The Gift of Fear. I think it will be insightful.
My understanding is that Ryan Gosling was replaced because Jackson realized he looked too young for the role (remember when this movie was filmed). He gained the weight in an attempt to look older, but Jackson decided it still wasn’t enough. Great reactions and discussion!
This movie and Hanna sold me on Saoirse Ronan, made me watch almost all her movies, had some other good ones like Byzantium and Brooklyn .. love the actress
Saoirse roman is a beast in this even for someone so young at the time.
I remember feeling absolutely deflated, extremely emotional, disturbed, and overwhelmed by how ***stunning*** this film is.
It is one of those films you can not watch often, because it's way too scary and real.
I think the ending where the Sister Lindsey is holding the book and her Mother has returned. It is basically saying to be present and enjoy those important moments of light and love with family.
Even when the lack of urgency to reveal the evidence is very frustrating, I get it. It wasn't right in that moment.
Also, when Susie is having her last impactful moment before crossing over, she chose to have her 1st kiss with Ray. Instead of choosing to have her body revealed at the sink pit (my perspective from only knowing the film). Again it is light and love... instead of pain, resentment, anger, revenge, or even justice. It's letting go.
It focuses on precious moments, instead of succumbing to darkness and reliving trauma.
It's a very spiritual film.
I can not get over the visuals throughout, especially the inbetween. 💖
48:03
Y'all filmed this on what would be the 50th anniversary of her death... That's such a wild coincidence.
I actually remembered the date as it passed. It felt weird because she was never real, but it stuck with me. She was the same age as my father, who is now sixty-four. To think that if this were real, Ray, Ruth, Lindsey, Buckley etc. would probably all still be alive. Even Abigail and Jack may still be alive, albeit in their 90s (which makes me wonder how family reunions work in Sebold's version of Heaven... does every dead person get trapped in the In-Between? Would Susie meet her family there and lead them to Heaven like Holly did for her? Would she interact with their elderly ghosts while still in the form of a 14-year-old girl?)
The book was way, way, way more brutal in every single way. Alice Sebold didn't sugar code anything.
25:00 the oats and eggs are a real old school thing I was blown away to see it in a movie it’s an extreme grandma move. It’s that old school self care on the cheap at home - which is rarely seen today as frequently granny methods and diys instead of purchases.
(The oats are for skin inflammation and psoriasis- eczema etc) (eggs usually the whites would be used in a wash/rinse because it basically coats the hair and protects it making it look shiny/healthy/helping with breakages.)
There was also an absurd amount of murders in Pa along with serial killers so the fact that it’s so Pa focused is wild and semi accurate to the location - even if it’s fictional.
Watched this movie when I was younger and never realized this was directed by Peter Jackson. After you guys mentioned it, I could not stop seeing the LOTR/Hobbit camera moves. This movie shattered me as a young girl because i watched it after reading the book which gives a LOT more context to what happened to Suzie and takes place in PA where I am from so it was horrifying!!
I live in NORRISTOWN PA exactly where her murder took place and my high school is right across the street from a cornfield 😲
This was a challenging book to read as a teen when it came out in 2002. …then came the movie. In this role, Stanley Tucci is mind blowingly terrifying beyond words. The realest nightmare bc people like him actually exist
I watched this in theaters as a teen and then never watched it again because of how it made me feel. I hated how he essentially gets away with it but also that happens so often irl. Great movie, would never watch again.
The first time I watched this I cried so hard. I knew from the book she was sa’d and then murdered. They did a great job subtly implying it.
This movie is so depressing. I remember watching it for the first time it broke me to the point I was sobbing. The fact Stanley Tucci plays the pedo/murderer so well I didn’t even realize it was him until years later. They made him unrecognizable.
Yeah one of the problems with this being a book to movie adaptation is how rushed, random or disconnected it feels at times. There’s a lot going on with the characters in the book over the course of several years that a movie doesn’t have time to cover. I do appreciate that the gruesomeness was dialed way down for the movie
Well it can’t be a 6 hour movie
@@Hydepop19 Exactly, they would have needed to do a miniseries, lol.
By the time she takes over Ruths body in the book, her body was already in the sinkhole. I always thought changing it to this was to imply she didn't care about getting revenge anymore.
While on one side, yes, everyone grieves differently, to me, the movie is suggesting that Susie’s influence from beyond the grave is what made things escalate to where they did.
Now, I know better than to make a claim like that without evidence to back it up, so let me offer you this:
Holly warns her from the get go that staying in the in between and not letting go, interacting with the living, is something you’re not supposed to do. Susie touched Ruth’s hand, and now she has a connection to her. Probably how she was able to possess her body.
But as it turns out, Holly was right.
#1: The dad doesn’t become obsessed with finding Susie’s killer until Susie connects with him through the candle’s reflection in the window. This is why the mom keeps screaming for him to stop, and just let it go. The mom never really has this connection with Susie, and really is trying to move on, but Susie connecting with the dad is what’s keeping him hell bent on looking for justice.
#2 The scene where the dad chases Harvey through the corn field with a bat and almost gets beaten to death. That only happened because once again, Susie reached out through the afterlife to send him a sign that Harvey was the killer, in the form of one of Harvey’s dead flowers blooming in front of his eyes.
This is actually even more significant than the other one to me, because this is ultimately what makes Susie realize what Holly had been trying to tell her all along: Just her being here and refusing to move on is exactly what’s preventing everyone else from healing and moving on, to where they’ll even let everything fall apart because of it.
It’s this that makes her finally accept she has to move on, once and for all, even if it means never coming back.
Those dollhouses freak me out. They're not just dollhouses. They're exact replicas of real houses. So he'd know exactly where his victims were at all times.
5:05 - 5:08 George (Stanley Tucci) walks past the window, obviously stalking Suzie.. I never noticed before.. a small detail, you wouldn't notice until you watched closer a second time..
So sad so many children have been through this in real life. Ones whom have survived and others who didn’t. My heart!
I read somewhere that a lot of Rachel Weisz' scenes were cut and I feel like removing the mother from the plot kinda takes away a lot of the feelings and grief. but oh well
I would not say she was a super important character, but she along with the other family members provided perspective, and she displayed one of the ways people deal with grief. I think more scenes with here would have added more to the film and provided more of a mother perspective, but because she’s more of a side character I can see why her scenes were cut.
Mark Whalbergs was originally supposed to be Ryan Gosling. But Peter Jackson replaced him because he didn't approve of the weight he'd put on for the role. Ryan Gosling was drinking melted tubs of Hagen Daz, because he believed the father should weigh 210 pounds. But I have to say Mark Whalberg was fantastic in this film.
Already preparing myself to cry when Greg starts crying… this movie man.
I remember reading the book, crying my eyes out in middle school because this subject was so new to me. It was in my local library. Finding out they had a movie Years later and watching it brought back all those tears. The book is so beautiful and I always recommend people to try to read it- especially since some scenes didn’t happen in the movie. It’s so heart breaking!
Tara Erickson has been an absolute gift to these movie reactions, love her energy
It really makes me want to reform the justice system for things like this. People are hurt by monsters. Those monsters deserve to be held accountable by never allowed to enjoy life ever again.
I read the book in 6th grade which….her death is super graphic and detailed. Page 11-12 i believe. So traumatizing but by that age i was already molested so reality is, kids get molested and r4ped so maybe i was too young for it but i was also too young to be molested.
Having cried my way through the book half a dozen times, just hearing "My name is Salmon, ( like the first ) First name, Susie. Makes me burst into tears. Cause I know what's coming.
Extremely similar situation happened to my friend when I was in middle school. There’s a song about her and everything. I can’t watch this movie without breaking down
5:08 Apparently in this scene, you can see the killer 4 different times.
Sitting at a table. On the left.
Just just walked right past the window.
Outside the record store when Ray walks in
This was a fav to see in Theaters when it came out. Movie is great. The visuals. Stanley Tucci deserved all the awards for this.
I went to see this in the cinema when it came out, knowing nothing about it except that the visuals appealed to me. I took my girlfriend on a Friday night, went in in a great mood, and came out like 2 hours later just.... defeated haha
You are a good person, a good hearted person can not resist this horror... It's too much
This movie was shot so great. Watched this when I was younger and it’s so good and so sad
Damn, I’m already crying. Thinking about Susie missing out on her life, the parents searching and the worry, along with her sister. It’s all heartbreaking
I remember reading the book (even more fucked up) when I was in middle school & then watching the movie…its such a beautiful but tragic film.
also the book really does delve into the family’s grief but i’m not sure the movie would’ve been pg13
That almost not quite quote is another reference to the book. And it's even sadder.
A couple finds her charm bracelet. One of them says, "The girl this belongs to is all grown up now.". And Susie narrates, Almost. Not quite.
I don't get why some people think Lindsey considered not handing over the evidence. She'd just decided not to right that second.
Notice how in the ending she sounds more subdued? Resigned? Instead of happy-ish like in the beginning?
In the beginning when she says, "Like the fish.", it sounds cute. Like a kid. But when she says it again in the end, it's like she's not even trying to sound happy anymore.
I'm studying this book for my English A-Level course, which is part of the reason I'm here. I'm impressed with how many of the important details that we cover in lesson are highly emphasised in the movie! ❤
I read the book years before the movie came out. The movie lived up to the book, which is always nice.
I was so glad it stayed mostly true to the book and the things that were kept out were for a good reason so i wasnt mad
This movie and story is local to me in multiple ways…the movie was filmed near my middle school (while I was still there) and the story is based in the town I grew up in. I even read the book later on in high school and then saw the movie after. Talk about full circle.
The whole story is sad and so surreal.
Susan Sarandon is so damn good!
Love Her
I saw this twice in the theatres. I loved it so much. I would tell others to see it but they said they didn't want to watch a movie of a child being murdered. I'm Buddhist and was studying it very hard when this movie came out. So I think I saw it at a different perspective than most people did.
what perspective were you looking at it from? like a life/death/afterlife kind of perspective?
This movie really made me cry as a kid, such a horrifying yet realistic story told in such a visually beautiful way.
saoirse ronan has always been an incredible actress. I never looked at stanley tucci the same after this role 😖
This movie makes me cry every time I happen to watch it, I'm crying right now ! When she talks about his victims gets me every single time
The book this is based on is one of my favourites. There's a lot of plot & characters cut out for the film which I know is for the running time but it's still a good film.
I remember when the boy Adam Walsh was taken, and later his dad created that tv show to catch other criminals.
Even sadder:
I lived in Pantego, TX as a child, and behind my neighborhood was a park. Veterans Park. It was mostly woods with a small plateau and a cavern area with a few caves, but the caves weren't deep. Anyway, my friends and I used to explore the woods constantly, especially when we first discovered the cavernous area. It looked like the Grand Canyon to us.
Several years later, long after I moved away, a story came on the news. It was about a missing girl. She had disappeared while playing at a parking lot. She was found some time later in a creek in Veterans Park, deceased. Her name... was... Amber Hagerman. The AMBER Alert was created in her honor.
I saw this movie in my early teens I think? I just remember how it made me feel then. But now as a father, I understand the father’s perspective in all of this as well. Makes it that much more heartbreaking to watch
I remember first time i watched this movie. I was home alone and sick and watch some comedy at HBO, i was 11 years old. When the comedy ended, this movie starts. It was about midday, i strill doesnt understand that this type of movie was in this part of the day without some warning. I watched it all and was scared as hell, i was never scared from horror movies but this one... I was shaking with fear from it and I was terribly cold. I checked all windows and doors twice, wrapped myself in duvets and blankets and listening every sound in the totally silent house. I also remember that later I started to look for something else on the TV channels, but in the end I played the DVD Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Depp and anime movie Spirited away. Till these days i had weird feeling about this movie but also kind of love it. In retrospect, I found out that the director wanted to shoot the rape scene, but the villain actor didn't allow it so that the actress wouldn't be traumatized. According to him, it was already too complicated and demanding for her. In my opinion the movie was traumatizing enough and doesnt need explicit rape scene.
My sister was 16 when the neighbor murdered her. He had also killed other women. While we technically did get her body back, it was burned beyond recognition. Identified by dna. When someone does like that you don’t see the mourning that you typically do. It’s different. I don’t know why I continue to watch this movie because I cry every time, but I want to feel like just like Suzie, she’s still with me somewhere.
One of my all time favorite movies since seeing it the first time, took me 3 rewatches and getting older to actually understand and i mean understand this movie and it will forever stick with me
No amount of makeup could’ve convinced me Ryan Gosling could play a 1970s father of three
70s people had kids younger, didn't they?
the lovely bones traumatized me when I was a kid 😨😨😭😭
this movie never fails to make me cry, no matter how many times I see it.
I bawled my eyes out the first time I watched this movie.
At the end when the icicle hits him on the head does anyone remember the scene earlier where Suzy saw the icicle hanging on the tree branches in the spirit world in the woods?
Sad but the author of this book, Alice Sebold (writing a memoir titled "Lucky"), made an innocent man jailed for 16 years, only recently that he has been exonerated of his conviction...
Sure did 💯
I'm not sure why that's relevant to the movie. Less than 1% of reports result in convictions where I'm from. It happens all the time. People who do these things are walking among us. If they didn't have enough evidence to convict anyone then technically it still could have been him. People cast doubt on people who come forward all the time, no one pays attention to the fact that hundreds of thousands of people come forward and nothing is done about it. That's a much bigger problem in my opinion.
@@Lilah1848 It's relevant to the movie because she made millions off of the back of a man who she falsely accused of rape. He's a fucking human being, you fucking monster. Just bc convictions don't often happen, doesn't mean an innocent man in jail should make you happy.
@Lilah1848 I mean she didn't even picked the guy from a line up.
@@Voidcolded She said two guys looked identical in the lineup. It's very unfortunate, I wish it didn't happen that way. But number 1, no one can prove who did it still till this day. He says it wasn't him, he's been exonerated, but lack of evidence doesn't mean 100% innocence. That's how most of these people get away with it - lack of evidence to convict, then they tell people they're innocent. And number 2, like I said, we actually have hundreds of thousands of reports that never see a conviction. So we're focusing on the wrong things. R-kits sit in police stations for years, blame the flawed system, not a woman desperately seeking justice.
My best friend and I used to watch this movie every Friday for like 3months straight breaking down every little aspect and detail. He’s now my partner and we have 2kids. I haven’t thought of this movie in years!!! I’m gona remind him in the morning. I’m in tears. Thanx guys for unearthing these memories.
Two important things I think the two of you are glossing over or are just not getting:
1. This movie is through the point of view of a teenage girl, Suzie. She is the focus; her cringe heightened crush on the poet, her sparkly rose coloured glasses view of her world, her disassociation and avoidance of accepting her death via the fantasy world etc. Her feelings and evolving emotional point of view are what dictate the pacing/visuals for the entire film. That's why it shifts from washed out haze to ethereal dreamstate to darkly dramatic and back again. It's our connection to Suzie's emotional state as she comes to grips with what happened to her.
2. Unless you have been through tragedy like this or SA, you will never truly understand why the very strong choice to "not fully land" was made. Families completely crumble when faced with acute trauma (the mom leaving, messy grandma coming in to help). Having answers/getting justice is so incredibly rare. The reality is you are left with loose ends, questions, and wounds. I deeply appreciated the artistic choice to make the audience feel as close to victimized as possible; to not tie everything up in a pretty bow. Leaving us feeling unresolved and hollow forces a special type of empathy to emerge.
Weird comment. You can still critique a movie even if you were SA’d. Not every aspect is going to vibe with every person.
@@doctorposting Weird response. Straw man argument.
I've only been able to watch this the one time it absolutely did something to me. It was a great performance but I was way too disturbed by it to be able to watch it again.
First 2 min in my thought was "Oh no... you guys have no idea what this movie is about do you.." I cried my eyes out when I was around 12 years old just by the last quote susie says.
It’s haunting.