Review: The Lovely Bones

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen The Lovely Bones and I still have mixed feelings over it. Half of it is a really stellar film that affected me greatly, but the other half is decidedly weak. The good definitely outshines the bad but that still doesn’t excuse the bad from being really bad.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is a cheerful, bright, 14-year-old who was raped and murdered by her neighbour (Stanley Tucci) after school one day. She posthumously narrates the story while she’s stuck in the “in-between” world watching over her family as they frantically search for her body, which was never found. Her father (Mark Wahlberg) spends all his time interrogating the detective on the case (Michael Imperioli) and trying to put it all together on his own time while her mother (Rachel Weisz) wants to move on from it. In the process the family falls apart until Susie’s memory is just a black stain on their lives.

What worked and what I liked about the film was Ronan and Tucci. These two actors make their characters real and human, for better or worse. The innocence Ronan presents will rip your heart out and the raw terror Tucci displays as someone who can take away a little girl from this world is sickening. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the other actors in the film. Wahlberg was miscast and the whiny voice he tends to put on in dramatic roles was very obnoxious here. Weisz was flat and didn’t get to flesh out her character, and Rose McIvor, who plays Susie’s sister Lindsey, seemed to be put in the corner more often than not. But the worst of the bunch was Susan Sarandon and her portrayal of the grandmother. This is a woman who doesn’t show any sympathy over the fact her granddaughter is dead and is only in the film for unnecessary comic relief.

Peter Jackson directed The Lovely Bones and helped adapt it from Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel. His signature is all over the film too. Whether it’s the grandiose effects in the purgatory Susie is stuck in (which felt like leftovers from Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus mixed with some of Jackson’s own Lord of the Rings set) or the dramatic teenage scenes that he did so well in Heavenly Creatures there is no question this is his film. And maybe that’s the problem. Someone other than Jackson might have been able to tone it down better and focus on the parts from the book that really matter instead of making one big mess trying to cram it all in.

Although I didn’t love The Lovely Bones I would watch it again and I do recommend it to someone who is looking for a Sunday afternoon drama.

*** out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Official Site IMDb

brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com

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Top image: Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.