Harvey), dumps the safe into the sinkhole in the first few chapters while in the movie it's pushed back toward the end and a crucial choice is made. However, even if these plot points were put back into the film, there would still be a somewhat major flaw for me and that's the scene toward the end. This description doesn't fit anything that's in the final version. "There's lots of cross cutting between the two settings the girl is lost in a forest of butterfly wings meanwhile her dad (Mark Wahlberg who I haven't mentioned) has a nervous breakdown and screams at his wife (a very unlikable Rachel Weisz) until they both cry." I even ran across an old article about a test screening, months before the movie was ever released to the general public that, though it still had many of the same complaints that some had with the finished film, a few lines jumped out at me: When I look through some of these montage sequences, Susan Sarandon's in particular, that are featured in the movie, I see bits and pieces of scenes that could've been larger scenes during an earlier cut of the movie, but for whatever reason, Peter Jackson chose to cut them and only give the audience an impression rather than letting the audience get a sense of this family and the true struggle their facing. This shot would foreshadow Abigail's story-arc that would've came later in the movie. This scene (without the inclusion of Susie Salmon taking a picture, though I'm sure that's originally how the scene played out) strangely, is at the end in a montage sequence (one of three in the film, I believe). This is the real Abigail that Susie had never seen before, and Susie, secretly, takes a picture of this moment and a moment featured right after that moment where Abigail, the wife and mother comes out to tell her husband goodbye.
There's even a shot lifted directly from the book, where Susie is taking pictures in her yard and she catches Abigail with a strange far away look on her face. I think he might just be saving face because he knows that fans of the novel were not happy with this change. On the special features disc, there is a moment of a deleted scene between Abigail and Len and the explanation from Peter Jackson was that they raced around trying to film these scenes but they didn't devote much time to it, and there wasn't much to those scenes at all It seems possible that could be accurate, but by Peter Jackson's body language, I'm not sure I buy it. Those who have read the book know that Abigail grows distant from her family as a way to escape the horror of losing her first born and she ends up having an affair with Len Fenerman (the policeman who has been assigned to the case of Susie Salmon's murder). Speaking of Abigail, her character has a rather huge arc in the novel that's effectively neutered in the final cut. I took a look through the second disk of the blu-ray copy I've had and, I think, from what I gathered, the bracelet was supposed to represent every year of Susie's life, and that missing scene between Abigail and Susie would've helped clear that up. This scene never particularly made sense within the context of the film in it's current form. A scene with Susie and Abigail with the charm bracelet that's featured later on in the movie that is thrown into a small body of water, and Susie is shown, later, underwater in "The In-Between". I happened to do a cursory glance at a trailer after giving the film a re-watch and the book a re-read after many years of not having read or watched either and I noticed a scene that I didn't recognize. Growing up, I was a fan of the book, and I enjoyed the movie despite its flaws and its major omission of, in my opinion, crucial plot points from the book (particularly Rachel Weisz's character, Abigail Salmon). In the film's current form, I can see why this charge was leveled at it. I believe the consensus was that Peter Jackson was too interested in Susie's "In-Between" rather than the family that was disintegrating as a result of her death. This might be a weird one and many people would probably consider this a nearly unfixable film the subject matter and the way this subject matter was handled was criticized heavily upon release. There are spoilers in this post for those who haven't read the book.