The Lovely Bones is a best-selling novel by Alice Sebold. In it, teenager Susie Salmon watches from heaven as her family collapses after her brutal murder.

Doesn't exactly sound like an uplifting tale, does it?

Tell that to director Peter Jackson, who emailed USA Today this week to discuss his big screen adaption of the book.

"I found the book to be curiously optimistic," Jackson wrote. "I felt inspired by Susie's struggle to come to terms with her own death. In the face of overwhelming grief, she finds hope. She holds on to love, and by doing so, she transcends the horror of her murder.

It's hard to make him out, but Stanley Tucci stars as George Harvey, who kills Susie (Saoirse Ronan), in the movie version of The Lovely Bones.