The movie opens with a very innocent scene of a little girl looking at a snow globe. The snow globe has a little penguin inside. The little girl is worried about him. Her dad says that he is safe and for her not to worry. As a child, this little girl felt safe and protected by her father.
The story is narrated by Susie Salmon, a 14 year old girl with strawberry blonde hair and blue eye, the all-American girl next door. The setting is a small, run of the mill, town called Norrisville, Pennsylvania.
Susie is from an average, middle-class, family. Her dad is an accountant and her mom is a stay-at-home mom. She has a younger sister named Lindsey and a little brother named Buckley. They have a dog called Holiday.
The timeframe of the movie is in the 1970's. Susie was in ninth grade. She had a crush on a senior, his name was Ray Singh. He had recently moved to America from England. His family was Hindu. He was tall, dark, and handsome. The day that Susie died, Ray had asked her out on a date. She was to meet him in the Gazebo at the mall on Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. Susie was so excited, that while walking home that day she was so preoccupied with her thoughts about Ray, she let her guard down. That would be her undoing.
Susie had received a Kodak Instamatic camera for her 14th birthday. She was so excited. She wanted to be a wildlife photographer when she grew up. Until then, she was content to take pictures of anything and everything. She joined the Photography Club at school. On this particular day, she never made it home.
Susie was a very curious girl. So when Mr. Harvey, her neighbor, had asked her if she wanted to see the cool fort he had built underground for the neighborhood kids, she couldn't resist. Mr. Harvey had been watching Susie for some time. He had meticulously planned and built this fort, knowing exactly what he was going to do to Susie.
At first, Susie thought the fort was cool. Mr. Harvey had lit candles and had put books and games on ledges to make it look kind of cozie. He even gave her a soda. Once Mr. Harvey started to talk and talk and started to act weird, Susie got scared and told him that she had to leave. He got angry and told her to be polite. If Susie Salmon was nothing else, she was polite. Finally, she tried to escape. Mr. Harvey pulled her back violently. After raping and killing her, Mr. Harvey cut Susie's body up into pieces. He brought her body home in a bag and shoved it into a safe that he kept in his basement.
As Ruth Connors, a girl at Susie's school that everyone thinks is strange, is walking home from school, she feels Susie's soul rush by her as she is walking down the street. She doesn't tell anybody, but she knows it was Susie. Ruth has psychic abilities and can sense dead people around her.
Mr. Harvey, a balding man with thick glasses, lived alone. He would sit for hours building doll houses. He sold them at the local mall. He was very regimented in his daily routine. Everything in his house had to be in its place. He tried to blend in in the neighborhood. He wanted to be viewed as someone no one would even bother to look at twice. He was very good at blending in. He liked to look out from behind the curtains of his living room window and look at the school girls as they walked to and from school. That is when Susie Salmon caught his eye. From then on, all he could think about was his plan to abduct, rape, and murder her. He would sit for hours obsessing over every detail of his plan; one that he was finally able to bring to fruition.
When Susie doesn't come home for supper, her parents become worried. They start calling her friends houses. No one has seen her. Her father takes her picture and starts walking the streets asking people if anyone has seen her. As he is showing her picture to someone, he hears her scream and feels her presence.
Susie can see her dad, but she can't get to him. She finds herself caught limbo. Not Heaven or Hell, just in between. Because her soul was ripped out of her body so violently, it wasn't able to go on to Heaven or where ever your soul goes when you die.
She finds herself at a door. She opens it and walks into a bathroom. She sees her killer washing off her blood and the dirt from the fort where he killed her. She looks over at the sink and sees the razor knife that he used to kill her. She also sees her sterling silver bracelet. She realizes at that moment that she really is dead and she lets out a blood curdling scream.
After searching the cornfield where Susie was killed, the police show up at Susie's parent's house and tell them that they have found a stocking cap, (the one that her mother had made for her and gave her that morning) covered with blood. They tell Susie's parents that they have not found a body, but there was a significant amount of blood where they found the hat. Her mother realizes that Susie is in fact dead. Her father won't accept that. He feels that if there is no body, that there is still a chance that they will find Susie alive. He hangs onto that hope for a while.
Once Susie's father comes to the realization that she is really dead, he becomes obsessed with finding her killer. He is pointing his finger at everyone he can think of. He is constantly calling the police with his ideas on who he thinks killed Susie.
Susie and her father had always had a special connection. (Her little brother also senses her presence as well). While sitting in Susie's room, her father finds the box of film that Susie wanted to have developed. He remembers making a deal with her that he would pay to have one roll of film developed a month. He takes one roll and every month from then on, he develops a roll of film. A deal is a deal. He is impressed with the quality of the shots that his daughter had taken. He keeps wanting to show them to his wife but she doesn't want to see them. She thinks he is crazy. She wants to move on, he can't let it go. Eventually, one of Susie's photos will unveil a vital clue to who her killer is.
The stress of Susie's murder starts to erode at her family. Her father starts sleeping in his study. The study he and Susie used to build his "ships in a bottle" collection. All of the walls are filled with shelves that are filled with these bottles. The very sight of them gives him comfort and reminds him of Susie. He starts to neglect his wife and his marriage. Her mother won't go into her room and refuses to talk about her. Her sister becomes obsessed with exercising and her little brother is just confused because nobody wants to talk about Susie anymore.
Meanwhile, Susie is starting to accept that she is somewhere "in between." She knows that she can't move on. She wants someone to find out who her killer is. She can look down on her family and see their pain. She wishes that there was something she can do to help them. While there, she meets a young Asian girl who calls herself Holly. She fills Susie in on the rules of what you can and can't do in limbo. Her and Holly have a great time hanging out, running around playing dress up and just having fun. They become best friends.
Susie starts to use her imagination to create whatever she wants. She can visualize anything. She sees "Green Animals" and glass bottles with ships in them, there is a white Gazebo that she spends a lot of her time in and a penguin (like the one in her snow globe as a child.)
The police detective, who has now become close to the family, begins to see that Susie's mother is not dealing well with her death, he suggests that Susie's father invite her grandmother (who is an alcoholic and whose ways are unconventional) to come and stay with the family to help out his wife and the kids. Nobody is thrilled with this situation, the grandmother, the mother, or the kids. Susie's mother finally snaps and packs her bags and leaves. She moves as far across country as she can get. She gets a job in a winery in California. The physical labor helps her to take her mind off of Susie. When anyone asks, she tells them she has two children, not three.
Susie's younger sister, Lindsey, starts to suspect their neighbor, Mr. Harvey. She gets a weird feeling every time she goes by his house. When she takes their dog, Holiday, for a run by his house, he barks uncontrollably. She knows, he senses something too. No one would believe Lindsey about Mr. Harvey and her suspicions of him. Little did she know that he was plotting to kill her next.
Susie watches her family from above. She sees their daily trials and tribulations. She also gets to witness a very tender moment in her sister Lindsey's life. She see her receive her very first kiss (the very same moment that Susie looked so forward to experiencing in her own life, but because of Mr. Harvey and what he did to her, she was never able to have. On one hand, she is very happy for her sister, but on the other hand, she is very sad for herself.
Susie is able to visit with Ray on occasion. She watches him and senses his despair. She knows that he is missing her and feels his love. As time goes on, his memories of her begin to fade. He and Ruth Connors have become very good friends. They are connected through Susie's death.
When Susie's father developed the very last roll of film, he saw a picture of Mr. Harvey. Bells went off in his head. Like Lindsey, her father began to suspect Mr. Harvey as well. He began sitting in his car outside of Mr. Harvey's house. One day he even went over to talk to him. He start to help him with a hunting shelter that he was building in his back yard (little did he know that he was building it to use to lure his other daughter into, so he could rape and kill her too.) While in Mr. Harvey's back yard, her father picked up a dead flower. Susie wanted Mr. Harvey to get caught so she made the flower bloom in her father's hand. Her father realized that it was Susie's spirit doing it and he knew then that Mr. Harvey was her murderer. He went after him, but he locked himself in his house and got away.
The police told Susie's father to stay away from Mr. Harvey. They didn't have any evidence to link him to Susie's murder. Once Lindsey heard that, she decided to break into Mr. Harvey's house to get some evidence against him. Mr. Harvey had suspected that Lindsey was on to him. He caught her in his house. He chased her out of his house and over his fence. She got away. As she was running away, she showed him what she had found. It was a book that he kept all of his drawing, newpaper articles and even a clipping of Susie's hair. As Lindsey was looking at the book upstairs in Mr. Harvey's house, she saw newspaper articles about her in the book; along with drawings of the shelter he had been building in his back yard. She realized that he had intended to kill her next. But, she wasn't going to give him that chance.
Even though Lindsey had the evidence they needed to arrest Mr. Harvey, he had enough time to skip town; never to be seen or heard from again. Before he left town, he was able to dump the safe, with Susie's body in it, into the sinkhole on the Connor's farm. Once the safe was swallowed up by the earth, Susie walked through a series of scenes depicting all of Mr. Harvey's other victims. There were 7 victims in all going back to the mid-sixties. They, too, had been in limbo. Their souls were released at the same time that Susie's was. Before Susie could go on, she had to go back to see Ray once more. She used Ruth's body to come back. She showed herself to Ray as she was before she died. She was finally able to get the thing she had wanted most in life, a kiss. Ray was finally able to say goodbye to Susie.
In the end, Susie's mother came back home to her husband and children. Even though Mr. Harvey got away, they at least knew who her killer was and they didn't have to wonder anymore. Even though Susie's family would never forget her, they were, each in their own way, able to let her go and move on too.
Unfortunately, Mr. Harvey got away, but while trying to lure yet another young girl into his car, he was hit by a falling icicle which made his slip and fall backwards. He fell off of a cliff and broke his neck and died. His body lay in a pile of snow over an embankment, similar to the way some of his victims bodies were discarded or dumped by him.
Symbolism and parallels:
snow globe: - Represents a time of innocence in Susie's life; a time when she felt safe.
parallel: - I collect snow globes.
1970's: Timeframe in which the movie takes place.
parallel: I grew up in the exact time period as Susie Salmon. There are so many things in the background of most of the scenes in this movie that I remember from my own childhood.
sterling silver bracelet: The bracelet represents Susie's life. All of the charms are symbols of the happy life she led up until she was murdered. Each charm holds a special memory.
parallel: I also have a charm bracelet. Each charm represents a time or event in my life that I cherish.
Kodak Instamatic camera: The camera represented freedom to Susie. In a life where she wasn't able to make most of her own decisions; her parents made them for her. With her camera, she was able to take pictures of anything she wanted.
parallel: I also received the same camera at the same age, so I know exactly how Susie felt about it. I have never stopped taking pictures since that day. I have literally thousands of photographs. (I am now in love with digital cameras.)
stocking cap: The stocking cap respresented the end of innocence to Susie's mother. Once they found the bloody stocking cap, her world had been changed forever. Susie was gone and would never come back.
parallel: My mother made me a stocking cap that was very similar to Susie's. I remember wearing it to please my mother, but I hated it.
ships in a bottle: They represented a time when Susie and her dad would spend time alone together. Time that was very special to her.
parallel: Me and my dad used to make different crafts together when I was young. Since my parents were divorced, this time was very special to me. It was a time when my father and I could relate to each other before I grew up and he didn't know what to do with me; a time that he nor I could ever get back to. But, I look back and am grateful for the time that we did have.
best friends: Susie and Holly became best friends in limbo. They were able to share everything with each other. As long as they had each other, they weren't alone.
parallel: My best friend Cathy and I shared so much. There will never be another person in my life that knew me the way Cathy did. We shared so much history together. Half of me went with her.
Green Animals: Susie imagines bushes shaped like animals. Each one has a special meaning to her.
parallel: My friend Cathy and I took a day trip to Newport, R.I. It was a wonderful day. We went to seen the "Green Animals." When I saw them in this film, I was floored at the way they made me feel. It was like Cathy was speaking to me through this movie.
flower: The flower represents a connection between Susie and her father. It was a message from beyond. I also think that the red flower represents Susie's precious blood that Mr. Harvey so carelessly spilled.
parallel: I love flowers. I love to garden. Cathy and I used to garden together. When one of the flowers she gave me blooms, it gives me hope. It is like a precious gift sent to me from Cathy. I believe that flowers represent hope for me.
When I am dead, and laid in grave,
And all my bones are rotten,
By this may I remembered be,
When I should be forgotten (Enright 293)
We all want to think that we will be remembered when we die. That our lives meant something. Not only to ourselves, but to others as well.
I liked that the main character (a 14 year old girl narrates the movie). I was able to gain a greater perspective on what she went through. As opposed to it being narrated by one of the parents or siblings.
This movie had a hugh impact on me. There were so many similarities and parallels in this movie that at the time, I felt that this movie was sent to me by Cathy. I felt that she was letting me know that she was okay. I also felt that she wanted me to move on. I'll never forget all the wonderful memories we shared.
I was wondering why they didn't show the funeral scene in this movie. Those types of scenes usually help the viewer empathize more with the character. I think that by leaving that scene out, the viewer is left to fill in the blanks (I think I just answered my own question).
When I first saw this film, I was still in the throws of grief for my friend. Seeing the beautiful visual effects and the unique view of what might happen after death, gave me hope.
By not tying things up in a pretty bow at the end of the movie (letting Mr. Harvey get away), it forces the viewer to acknowledge the fact that so many young girls fall victim to these preditors. If you have children, you should know who is living in your neighborhood. It's a lot easier these days to find that information out than it was in the 70's.
I think that the writer of this story was trying to shed light on this important topic. Our children are at risk and need to be protected.
http://www.aolnews.com/article/child-abductions-the-hype-vs-the-reality/19261824
A raging storm of emotion is triggered by a loss of something or someone we love. And in that storm we feel unprepared to navigate the turbulent waters of our own grief. Sometimes grief is so overwhelming that we panic, we go into a kind of "emotional shock." We become numb. At times we say, "I don't feel anything." Hours, days, and weeks go by. It's all a blur. We feel "disconnected," like we're watching our lives through a hazy fog. They don't seem to add up to anything. Whatever peacefulness and security we once had has been shattered by an inevitable reality we've spent our lives running away from (Welshons 10).
If you have every lost a loved one, you will be able to related to that last paragraph. It hits the nail right on the head of grief.
Works Cited
Enright, D. J. The Oxford Book of Death. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Knowles, David. "Child Abductions: The Hype vs. the Reality." Top News & Analysis, US, World, Sports, Celebrity & Weird News. Web. 01 Oct. 2010. http://www.aolnews.com/article/child-abductions-the-hype-vs-the-reality/19261824.
Welshons, John E. Awakening from Grief: Finding the Way Back to Joy. Makawao, Maui, HI: Inner Ocean, 2003. Print.
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