The Lovely Bones 2010
When returning home one night in snowy December Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is lured into a makeshift den constructed by a man in her neighbourhood Mr Harvey (Stanley Tucci) and brutally murdered. Susie then from the hereafter watches over her parents (Mark Wahlberg & Rachel Weisz) as they react to her murder and also her killer who attempts to cover his tracks and allude suspicion. As Susie observes the reaction from all around here, she is reluctant to let go of her life and starts to influence members of her family from her magical in-between before finally moving on to heaven. On earth her parents marriage comes under strain and Susie witnesses her sister (Rose McIver) come of age while also growing suspicious of Mr Harvey.
Peter Jackson's troubled big screen adaptation of Alice Seabold's emotionally charged novel Lovely Bones makes it's way across this side of the pond after receiving a lukewarm critical reaction from U.S critics at the end of last year. Considering The Lord of the Rings trilogy scope it seems Jackson struggled more to bring this more personal story to the screen, hence the delays and the recasting of Ryan Gosling with Mark Wahlberg, quitting due to supposedly artistic difference with Jackson, like the recently released Wolfman this film has undergone several release date changes and seems to have been promised for ages
Although this draws more parallels with Jackson's Heavenly Creatures it's all to aware of a fact that Jackson's audience would expect something more epic in scope from the director and even though Seabold's story is far more intimate and personal it's the times when Jackson goes for the epic style he more known for that this film doesn't quite click. There are moments that are effectively unsettling, the vision of Susie walking into a bathroom after her murder to witness her killer lying in a bath with the mud and the blood from the incident covering the floor and the basin with the razor really bring a chill. Much criticism has come from the fact Jackson has avoided showing the murder or downplaying the fact Salmon is raped, although he is on record as saying he wouldn't have thought people wanted to see it or that he didn't want to shoot it anyway. You could argue that the certification issue was brought into play, this certainly tests the boundaries of a PG13 or a 12 in it's content but the studio were looking to grant this a rating that would guarantee more bums on seats, whether this is the reason, the film does seem robbed of some of the power the book elicits.
It was always going to be a tough call representing the hereafter on screen, Seabold's almost high school like depiction of heaven in her book is dropped to be replaced by sweeping vista's bright colours and spectacular visuals which are all well and good but it seems the film gets carried away with this at times, granted the bottles smashing against the shore lines is extremely impressive juxtaposed with Wahlberg's Father smashing is bottled ships collection overcome by grief. Jackson seems all too pleased to show off his visual flourishes, consequently his Heaven doesn't entirely convince and at times just feels superficial.
Where Jackson does excel are in the small moments when the film is not bogged down by SFX, the performances are pretty much all solid with obvious stand outs, the build up to the murder is tense and although he chooses not to show the act itself the sequence with Harvey and Susie are in the underground den is perfectly invested with unease and the nodding dog and ceramic statues eerily lensed. Jackson stages an incredibly intense suspense sequence when Susie's sister Lindsey (Mclver) has broken into Mr Harvey's house looking for evidence to prove he murdered her sister. The moment showing Susie being shown Harvey's previous victims although not as powerful as the initial bathroom sequence (the one sequence that will stay with you after film more than any other) it's still effective. It's just a pity all the rainbow shifting landscapes are not delivered with nothing more than what seems to be visually impressive and nothing else.
Ronan who impressed in Atonement is excellent here, her Susie is intensely likeable and full of spirit, her performance more than convinces you of the heartbreak of her life been cut so short and sadness of watching her family and friends carry on without her, her once possible boyfriend Ray moving on and her Sister becoming a woman. Both Wahlberg and Weisz impressive performances but their marriage disintegration is briefly dealt with and the affair that she has with cop Len Fenerman in the book here played by Soprano's Micheal Imperiioli is completely exorcised from the film. Mclver perfectly essays Susie's sister Lindsey and grows in stature as the film progresses, Susan Sarandon's Grandma seems to be along for comic relief in a enjoyable but wacky turn but it is Stanley Tucci's quiet but intensely unnerving reading of Mr Harvey that impresses most, Tucci almost unrecognisable under the wig and make-up is truly creepy and deserves his best supporting actor nomination at this years Oscars, although Christopher waltz will rightly so steal it from him, if there is any justice.
The film is neither a disaster or a complete triumph, it was never going to be an easy task to undertake but Jackson does hit the bullseye often, Brian Eno's exquisite ambient score hangs over the film without being intrusive. It just seems that those always going to be tricky Heaven/Hereafter sequences were going to a tough sell and unfortunately the film doesn't quite pay off here, recommended with caution to those who've read the book, just like most popular novels adapted for the screen your going to feel like me that things are forgotten and avoided and not paid off but there is much to admire in Jackson's take on Alice Seabold's Lovely Bones.
*** 1/2
Last edited by BluraySe7en; 02-23-2010 at 06:59 PM.
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