The Lovely Bones Movie Review
The Lovely Bones Movie Review
Bones to pick from print to screen.
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SPOILERS AHEAD
Alice Sebold's bestselling 2002 novel of the same title delivered on impact when the distraught parents of a murdered 14-year-old girl are hit with the discovery of her skeletal remains. In the cinematic version, a police detective hands them her hat.
The contemplative book was hardly a Bret Easton Ellis novel to begin with, but the cinematic version, directed and co-written by Peter Jackson, softens everything to a cotton-candy haze. Through the brutal, unjust 1973 killing of innocent Susie, to her ghostly confusion at being dead, to her family's unrelenting hunt for her killer… everything's airy and ethereal.
Sebold's story, though sentimental and sometimes silly, still maintained a few elegantly sharp edges — Jackson mitigates and blurs, showing Susie's otherworldly existence as an enchanting, ornamental palace of the mind (as if Salvatore Dali had designed the kiddie board game Candyland). The trailer makes it seem as though The Lovely Bones is an unrelenting murder mystery, with slain Susie spearheading an urgent investigation. It's not. There are a couple of notable exceptions in the form of effective, gripping moments which include the girl's realization that she's lost her life, and her discovery of the killer's previous victims lying in their makeshift graves is bone-chilling.
If you have not read the book, will the movie stack up? Possibly. If you're looking for a return to Peter Jackson's earlier work in the human experience as it relates to dread, horror and suspense (Heavenly Creatures), then probably not. Having seen all of Jackson's films I will say that it's an evolution into something he's never done before and so in that regard, it's commendable. It is an assured, well-made, competent picture.
The teen-friendly fable is linear and easy to follow, beginning by introducing us to Susie through her own voiceover narration from the heavenly plane intercut with scenes of her interacting with her close-knit family. We see her falling into a sweet crush at school with a handsome British student by her locker, then at twilight Susie cuts across a field on her way home to dinner, and finally she is lured into an elaborate trap and killed. What follows is Susie's magical, mystical tour through purgatory — complete with a helpful guide in the form of a teenage girl who calls herself Holly Golightly (Nikki SooHoo) — and her family's disintegration following her unsolved, but grim-looking disappearance.
Susie's parents are played by Mark Wahlberg (acquitting himself well after some appalling acting in The Happening and Max Payne) and Rachel Weisz (no doubt hoping audiences have forgotten about Fred Claus — I haven't, but she's forgiven). The always sublime Susan Sarandon as free-spirited, intellectual alkie Grandma Lynn, and perky newcomer Christian Thomas Ashdale as Susie's little brother, steal some scenes. Rose McIver is excellent as the slightly younger, but much tougher, sister. Finally Michael Imperioli, as the detective on the case, is underutilized but solid overall (his affair with Susie's mom from the book is not hinted at here, thereby losing some nuance he might otherwise have benefitted from).
Susie herself is brought to life and death by the recently Oscar-nominated (for Atonement) Saoirse Ronan, who gives depth and dimension to what is basically an unfinished character, a young woman whose identity was just beginning to immerge. Her foil is Stanley Tucci as the murderer, a blatantly odd loner whose motivation is never explored (and it doesn't need to be — this is Susie's supernatural story). In spite of its inherently eerie themes — homicide, phantoms, and vengeance-fueled grief — George is the only truly scary thing in the movie and Tucci thankfully makes the most of it.
Much as I like Jackson, my biggest bone to pick here is with his dreamlike direction. While the visuals are hazy and supple, the actions themselves are too clearly drawn (for instance, Jackson zeroes in on a piece of evidence overlooked by police one too many times with pointed insert shots and close-ups, and the importance of Susie's hat is overly foreshadowed). Even in keeping with the PG-13 setting, I think this particular parable would have been better off in the hands of someone like Todd Fields (Little Children), Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road), or Kathyn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). As it is, The Lovely Bones is just too sappy for my taste — to me the cheesy 80s pop tune (This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren") plugged in towards the dragged out (but not quite Lords of the Rings 3) ending, is what really put the final nail in the coffin.
Having said all that, I did enjoy The Lovely Bones overall — but only when I switched mental gears, judging it on its own merits and taking the source material and my own expectations out of the equation. It is not a movie I will be rushing out to see again anytime soon, but the casting and characters make it worthwhile. It will probably be nominated for some Oscars (especially now that 10 films are eligible) and it's worth a look on the big screen for sure.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson