The Lovely Bones

Cindy and I saw The Lovely Bones yesterday. I was reluctant to see the movie for the usual reasons. I loved Alice Sebold's book - its imagination, honesty, and lack of sentimentality - and didn't see how Hollywood could do it justice. Reviews of the movie were highly critical. And seeing a young girl raped and murdered in digital high definition wasn't my idea of a fun way to spend a late afternoon. I went basically because Cindy wanted to give it a try and because I had heard so much about Stanley Tucci's performance.

The movie is very flawed but I'm glad I saw it. Stanley Tucci is riveting as Mr. Harvey. Tucci gives a performance that conveys menace, conflict, and evil without a hint of melodrama. He enables the audience to see the corrupt inner life of his character masked by an exceedingly ordinary, even nerdy exterior. Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon is almost as good. In the scenes depicting the crime she conveys the conflicting emotions and instincts of a 14 year old girl. Sensing something very wrong yet not wanting to be rude, she allows herself to be lured into Mr. Harvey's underground cave. Inside and feeling the danger, Ronan shows the increasing terror that Susie experiences. She makes wonderful use of her eyes and face to convey the overwhelming fear and panic of the situation. Ronan is not as consistent in the rest of the movie but that may have been the script and direction more than the acting. She is a remarkable young actress and one I would gladly see again.

The movie is not gratuitously graphic or violent. Susie's rape and death are not depicted directly and that is its saving grace. It is the aftermath of the murder, not the murder itself, that is the subject of the movie. In the first half, director Peter Jackson does a relatively good job of showing the destructive impact of Susie's loss on her family. However, somewhere past the midpoint, the film goes off track. The mother leaves the family for reasons not adequately developed, and returns towards the end of the movie without any apparent explanation. The boozy grandmother arrives to hold the family together although the film doesn't show how she does it. Violating the film's premises, towards its end Susie manages to have an experience and convey information that would require her to be alive rather than the dead narrator of the story. What happens to Mr. Harvey is clumsily foreshadowed. The special effects version of heaven and the "in between" are visually quite stunning but also a bit over the top. No film ever follows a book exactly but Jackson's script deviates from Sebold's remarkable book in ways which make the film somewhat disjointed and utimately unsatisfying. The solving of the crime is particularly hokey.

The performances of Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents are adequate. Susan Sarandon's Grandma Lynn is funny but almost phoned in. I don't think it was Sarandon's fault as much as the script's. She just wasn't given much to work with.

Overall, I'd give The Lovely Bones two and a half stars. Worth watching for the performances of Tucci and Ronan, the film made me want to read the book again. The book was worth five stars.