The Lovely Bones is based on Alice Sebold's bestselling novel, but unfortunately fails in every way that the book triumphs. It's is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year old girl who after being brutally raped and murdered, watches over her family (and murderer), seeing how her death has affected them. In the book, we get to deeply experience these characters, their emotions, thoughts, and attempts at coping in the face of tragedy. However, the film decides that character development is not as important as "symbolic" imagery (which will, without a doubt, alienate about 90% of its audience), and a gumdrop-colored CGI heaven. If I could sit down with Peter Jackson, and just really discuss this movie to see what was going through his head when he wrote the screenplay, I would ask him this: why, oh why is your "vision" of heaven a cotton-candy, flower-power CGI explosion? I just find so much humor in the fact that he calls this his "vision"...he obviously read the book, since he adapted it. Well let me tell you something: In the novel there was no snowy mountains or explosions of colors in Susie's heaven. Susie's heaven was high school. Imagine that. A recently murdered 14 year olds inner dreams and desires came together to form her heaven, an experience that most young girls get to experience and grow from: high school. To me, thats a lot more meaningful than what Jackson did. Maybe he forgot what he was directing. This is not Lord of the Rings. The imagery didn't need to be fancy...it just needed to be heartfelt. Instead almost all the heart that the story had was sucked out and thrown away.
The Lovely Bones
Now I know i'm being much harder on the film due to the fact that i'm a big fan of the novel. However, when I saw the movie for a second time, I disconnected the book from my head and tried to view the movie on its own. Even with doing this, the movie is still a failure. The movie ends and you can't help but just sit there afterwards and wonder to yourself: what was the point of that? Yeah it looked cool, yeah it elicited some tears from me. But what was the overall message? What's this story trying to tell me? This is the biggest problem on the movies part. The screenplay was all over the place and Peter Jackson just tried too hard...I know he tried, and I know he's a good director. Thats what makes The Lovely Bones all the more frustrating. With his crazy faux-symbolic imagery, its like he's trying so hard to make the story more "deep" and "meaningful". But what he failed to realize was that all the depth was already there in the novel. If he followed it, it would have all come smoothly and naturally.
Even with its many flaws, there still is some praise to be given to the movie. There are some scenes, such as the one where Lindsay breaks into Mr. Harveys house (not a spoiler, it was in the trailer) that were so perfect, and I wished there were more scenes like this one. But unfortunately, after the first 20 minutes (which were absolutely great), more scenes disappointed than succeeded. In addition to the few wonderful scenes, the acting was great all around. Most notably: Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, Mark Wahlberg as her father, and Stanley Tucci as Mr. Harvey (the murderer). Stanley Tucci is the only thing in this film that is nomination worthy, and I truly hope he wins Best Supporting Actor at the globes tomorrow. He completely transforms himself in the film, and I suspect that if you didn't know it was him beforehand, from the way that he looks and talks in the movie you might not even recognize him. He seriously gave me the creeps and made me super uncomfortable throughout the entire film (ESPECIALLY in the "murder" scene). Its a shame that with all this talent, and with these actors really giving it there all, the movie still fell flat. Jackson had so much to work with. Still, the acting was able to elevate the movie from disaster status to a somewhat enjoyable film. I just wish their characters were more explored so the actors could have put more depth into their performances, but its not their fault.
Overall, The Lovely Bones is a mediocre movie that quite often went for "emotional" but came out as "sappy". The novel is a super intense, emotionally-draining reading experience. The movie however, eliminated most of the emotion and pain that the novel related to its readers. Peter Jackson went for safety instead of getting up-close and personal with all of the really difficult and painful issues the book explores. And for that, I think he's a coward of a director. My final thought? If you can't handle the source material, DON'T try and adapt it into a movie.
Rating: C
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