Exploring the ongoing shift in our cultural narrative illustrated through film

2009. Directed by Peter Jackson.  Written by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

A free spirit is blooming in 14 year old Susie Salmon in her story The Lovely Bones, a story of the 1960’s, an era emblematic of openings.  On her bike, snapping her hundreds of photos, feeling attraction to a young man, engaging in all the activities of a curious, running-toward-life-becoming young woman.  Susie’s father ventures to grow with and in response to her emergent being, encouraging her brilliance as he explores an allowing fatherhood built on trust and not on presuming the worst of this world.  Neither Susie nor her father, nor anyone else recognizes the monster living down the block, a monster attracted by Susie’s very burning bright.   But this story it is not an “I told you so,”  not a story that invalidates a father’s allowing in his daughter.  And this story is not a warning to all our Susies to dampen their radiance, or else….

Read more in the Parlor Discourse Retooling Fatherhood part one The Lovely Bones