Have you read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold? It is a gorgeous book, well-written and poignant, though painful and sad as well, and full of complex female characters: there's Susie Salmon, the book's 14 year-old narrator, whose rape and murder by a neighborhood serial killer puts her in a personal heaven, where she watches her friends and family deal with her unsolved death; Abigail, her mother, and Lindsay, her younger sister, both of whom unravel, then slowly come to accept Susie's death; Grandma Lynn, who holds the family together in their time of crisis, and many more.
The movie rights to The Lovely Bones are owned by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), who is set to direct the film, which will star Rachel Weisz in the role of grieving mother Abigail. Being a new mother herself, (son Henry Aronofsky just turned 1), Rachel is sure to bring the kind of truth and emotional heaviness to the role, that only a woman who has experienced love for a child would be able to.
I can't quite picture someone as glamorous and sexy as Rachel portraying the '70's-era grieving housewife that Abigail is in the book... but I look forward to seeing how one mother brings another to life, and how the book and the film stack up against each other.
