Saoirse Ronan, who was so brilliant in Atonement (for which she earned an Oscar nomination), is, from what I've heard, similarly stellar in The Lovely Bones, now showing in very limited release. (It's scheduled to go wide in January.)

The film, based on Alice Sebold's novel of the same name, centers on the brutal murder of a young teen girl (Ronan), who now finds herself looking down on earth from some sort of "in-between place" which she also calls her "personal heaven."

Sebold's book and the film, directed by Peter Jackson, take a theologically inaccurate view of heaven and the afterlife, but at least it's started discussion about what comes next–and not just among moviegoers. Ronan herself is thinking about it.

"It was the first time I looked at a heaven as a possibly real place," she told USA Today recently.

You have reached the end of this Article Preview

To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access.

Log InSubscribe

Already a CT subscriber? Log in for full digital access.