Ghost Daughters in Three New Movies

Posted on January 31, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Three recent movies in different genres have had one thing in common — fathers who interact with the ghosts of their dead daughters. In the historical drama “Creation,” Charles Darwin sees the ghost of his daughter as his struggle to deal with her loss reflects in part his struggle over whether to publish his controversial theory of evolution. In the literary adaptation “The Lovely Bones,” the spirit of a murdered girl is stuck in the “in between” as she tries to help her devastated family and expose the killer. And in the thriller “Edge of Darkness,” Mel Gibson plays a cop whose 24-year-old daughter is murdered. As he seeks to understand what she was involved in, he sees her ghost as both a child and an adult, with an especially sweet scene with her at about age five helping him shave.
I always wonder, when something like this happens, whether it is some sort of harmonic convergence or just a coincidence.

Related Tags:

 

Understanding Media and Pop Culture
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2024, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik