You guys should know the story by now. 14-year old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered by her nextdoor neighbor (Stanley Tucci) and ends up in the Middle World between Heaven and Earth where she observes her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz) attempt to cope with their grief. Susie soon learns that she’s able to interact somewhat with the living and attempts to influence their actions before she moves onto Heaven, namely by guiding her father to confront her murderer.

The Lovely Bones is probably the most unconventional Hollywood film I’ve ever seen. While we essentially see the world (or rather both worlds) through Susie’s eyes, the film jumps around from plot to subplot to more subplot and constantly puts different characters in the spotlight so it’s jam packed with a wide array of experiences and perspectives. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The story is pretty unfocused and constantly shifts between feeling free and exploratory and just downright sloppy and convoluted. The same goes for the tone. The sappy parts are sappy, the touching parts are touching, the dark parts are dark, the weird parts are weird... for the most part anyway. The one is exception was the funny parts were NOT funny. Honestly, Susan Sarandon had no place in this movie. Her character, Susie’s alcoholic grandma, completely threw off the tone, which was already too muddled to afford any tacked-on “comic relief.”

I imagine all this is a result of following the book verbatim. I think the good and bad are in equal measure but one thing is for certain. The Lovely Bones is an extremely ambitious undertaking, even for Peter Jackson whose probably one of the most eclectic directors of all time.

I’ll start with the good. All the actors were spot on. Like I said, Sarandon was useless and detrimental but in another movie, she might’ve been charming and Michael Imperioli was good enough to ensure the token detective wasn’t just that. Ronan was very sympathetic. No Miley Cyrus to be found here. This girl really was an ordinary 14-year old girl, maybe just a tad on the quirky side. The realism of the character really enhanced the tragedy of her death. Which leads me to the standout... Stanley Tucci. To be fair, part of the greatness of his performance might lie in the fact that he’s not exactly the kind of actor you’d expect to stand out but he does and actually brings something different to the role that I think most actors wouldn’t. Naturally, he’s extremely creepy with his comb-over, grey eyes and pedo-stache but he’s not overtly sinister or repugnant. He doesn’t curse and there’s no scenes of panty-sniffing or anything too in-your-face like that. He’s soft-spoken, polite, sort of old-fashioned and probably a little too wholesome for his own good. It’s certainly a different take on that kind of character but I think it’s way creepier than normal.

The scenery in the Middle World is also superb. I’m not a CGI guy at all. I’m still vainly hoping that the Peter Jackson who puked green yogurt into a bowl and had a bunch of aliens drink it will come back someday. Still, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Rolling green hills, moonlit lakes, rocky shores, waterfalls as well as a strong helping of surreal imagery. Despite the CGI overload, I thought it actually felt pretty throwback. The Middle World was like the surrealist paintings of Dali and Escher brought to life. What was also remarkable was how well the imagery captured the essence of death. When you die, the people you leave behind experience the effects of your death together but the death itself is something you experience alone. Despite how beautiful the imagery is, there was an emptiness to it that really communicated the solidarity of death, which was absolutely crucial to the story.

There was still quite a bit wrong with this film. The story was told almost entirely through V.O. and V.O. of the worst kind. It constantly broke the cardinal rule of showing, not telling and was on the nose to boot. Susie explains in the detail the inner thoughts and feelings of almost every character to the point that you hardly have any room to come up with your own interpretations. At other times, the V.O. described stuff that was very plainly onscreen already and was thus completely useless. Like most of everything else in the film, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. When it didn’t, it ruined the moment completely.

There was also abundant melodrama of the absolute worst Speilberg-esque kind. Melodrama that lead to scenes with Susie and a crush, who of course is of the same dark-haired, olive-skinned European variety that shows up in the movies of all Disney child-stars, picking up books which fell out of her locker and scenes where characters call cops “pathetic” when they explain they need evidence for crimes and aren’t thinking with their emotions. While I loved most of the Middle World sequences, there was one particularly cheesy and out-of-place sequence involving Susie and another girl dressing up like pop stars and having cameras flash at them from out of thin air. Probably the worst of all was the ending, which was completely ruled out, as being possible just based on what the whole story was about. Cheesiest shit ever.

That said, while The Lovely Bones did have a lot of issues, I would certainly recommend it. It’s already proved to be an extremely polarizing film and I can definitely see why but then with all polarizing films, there’s still a 50/50 chance it’ll be worth your while.

I'm not sure where I stand on this one.  On a technical level it is amazing, Peter Jackson is a great filmmaker, on the other hand, I felt depressed after it was over.  I thought all the actors did a very good job, but it was such a depressing experience that really has no closure.  I  thought it was well made, but it is not the feel good movie the adds make it out to be....and for the record, i am seriously frightened of Stanley Tucci now!

After reading mostly negative reviews, I put off watching this movie until yesterday when the wifey and I decided to check it out. Let me just say that we were both pleasantly surprised. Overall, it was a good movie - a good story but also a very very depressing one. It felt a little disjointed in certain parts - especially the ones with Susan Sarandon in them, she didn't do a very good job in this movie I feel. Stanley Tucci though did a fantastic job, he's just plain scary. The dead girl also did great. I felt Wahlberg was maybe a little miss-cast for his role - he just seems too young for the part (he did good though, don't get me wrong). And it was also cool to see Chris Moltisante (Emperioli) again.

The movie tried - and succeeded - in showing a family in grief after the death of a child. Like I said, Wahlberg did good, I think his portrayal of the father was very real. I had a little harder time accepting that the mother would just move away to go pick berries (or whatever) for a while.

Now, on to the end. When the movie was over I felt cheated and robbed. Like Jordan mentioned, there is no real closure in this movie - for the characters, yes - but not for the audience - at least not the kind of closure I was looking for. While the ending was probably the right way to end it - a real life ending (not how a Hollywood movie normally ends) - I just needed something horrible to happen to Tucci's character. He had to die in the most gruesome way imaginable to satisfy me, and not die the way he did.

This is the sort of movie that sticks with you for a while, gets under your skin - as a good movie should do.

So, all in all, a very good movie.

I also really enjoyed it. Much more than I thought I would. I really don't understand why it's so hated.

~Zack~

Have to agree pretty much exactly with everything James said.  Great review, BTW, James!!!

In many ways, watching this was literally painful for me.  The parts that didn't work were downright terrible.  The entire film itself was so slow and plodding.

But, then again, there were those parts that totally worked and kept me from turning this off (which I did think about several times).  There was a very mean spirit running through the film and I like that...it adds realism, fear, hate, etc.

Didn't care for the end but in the same breath, it was different and this film was different throughout so maybe it only makes sense that it wuold end differently.

I definitely won't be seeing it again, but it did have alot to say and I'm glad I made it through.

I hated the film to be honest. I felt it trivialized rape, skimmed over emotion, and put the visuals ahead of the characters. Quite frankly it was a huge letdown and one of the worst things Peter Jackson has ever made.

Not a fan either - thought the whole thing lacked substance - also, not a fan of Saoirse Ronan, I think she lacks depth as an actress, probably because she has never experienced the emotions she is trying to convey on film and they then come across as an 'interpretation' and disingenuious. I'm sure as she matures her pallete will have more colour.

There's a scene early on in this film that made me yell at the screen.
The daughter has to drive her younger brother to the hospital as he's choking to death.
She's underaged and the parents are not home.
So she swipes the family car and puts her dying brother in the back seat.

And Peter Jackson decides, this is the time for a rock and roll montage video?!?!?!?
Seriously? Really? Are you just laughing in the audiences' collective faces?
And it gets better, she drives past her wtf double take parents on the street.
So not the time for a bouncy rock song when the poor boy is turning blue.
A joke about under aged drivers getting seen by their parents. Really?
That's the best you can do? Wow. Just wow.

I think Marky Mark being a literal last week replacement hurt the film.
Ryan Gosling was fired by Jackson six days before shooting began.
Stanley Tucci is seat squirming good, but frankly this film raised my hackles.

E.D.

Not sure what happened to this.

I read and enjoyed the book, and it's always difficult to be objective when you've done that....they rarely compare.

The best adaptations aren't necessarily the ones that try and stick closest to the material, they are the ones that take the essence of the story and remodel it to the shorter, more visual genre.

The problem with this flm was they lost the essence of what the book was about. The film gave it an almost opposite tone.

The book was about a girl who couldn't let go and about a family torn apart who also couldn't get closure. It was haunting and powerful.

The film introduced this horrible, horrible heaven where she was with all her new friends and it just didn't work at all. So rather than working towards closure and settlement of the pain as in the book, it completely negated it.

Always a shame when they mess up a successful story...that's the end of any chance you'll see a decent adaptation. Some things are best left in literature anyway.

I'm a huge fan of Peter Jackson's work on Lord of the Rings, King Kong and his oversight of District 9 as producer. I tried reading the book before the film came out but I just couldn't get into it. Not enjoyable at all for me, though it was well written.

So I saw this film with mild anticipation, and that was only because of Jackson's involvement. On a technical level, it was brilliant. It was visually stunning, featured amazing cinematography and visual effects, and had a haunting musical score. The period it was placed in was well captured and the set pieces were very unique and fun to look at. The acting was top notch, as well.

On every other level, it falls flat. It became very boring after a while to the point that even the amazing visuals couldn't keep my interest. Overall it was really just a weak film and a weak script. I honestly don't think the book was well-suited for film and is partly to blame for the boring outcome.

And to top it off, the ending was really bad and made me feel like I had just wasted a couple hours of my life.

In the end, I don't doubt that Peter Jackson is still ever bit the brilliant filmmaker he was on 'Rings. I just think he has way too many yes-men around him and picked very poor source material.

Not sure what happened here...

I really do think the whole film was manipulative and trying too hard to be confronting. There were at least 10 scenes that were specifically made to get a reaction out of the viewer - and after a while, it was tiring more than anything. SPOILERS When Susie enters the pedo basement, her sister goes into the pedo's house, Wahlberg gets beaten up by a basically unknown character, that native-american girl in heaven being a victim -- and on and on and on, it just did not work with me. All these scenes were meant to be suspenseful and tense but they lose all their power since they're just tired concepts, at least IMO.

It's like Peter Jackson studied every single aspect of dramatic irony possible - then stuffed it into a few scenes and added a (seemingly) unrelated plot that takes up at least 40 mins about the girl dancing in heaven like she's on shrooms.

It's a shame too because Tucci was pretty damn good in this. Very convincing acting. His character almost redeemed the film.

Quoted from Electric Dreamer And Peter Jackson decides, this is the time for a rock and roll montage video?!?!?!? Seriously? Really? Are you just laughing in the audiences' collective faces? And it gets better, she drives past her wtf double take parents on the street. So not the time for a bouncy rock song when the poor boy is turning blue. A joke about under aged drivers getting seen by their parents. Really? That's the best you can do? Wow. Just wow.

Yes! Forgot to mention this one as well.