The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold published her most famous novel in early 2002 and now will be most known for this. The Lovely Bones was a massive success because of its delicate nature and rather dark take on life and death. Multiple academy award winner Peter Jackson personally purchased the rights to the film adaptation because he believed he needed to tell the story. So released almost 2 months after its initial release down in New Zealand, the UK welcomed his take on the novel.
The Lovely Bones is the narrated story of young Susie Salmon, the oldest child in a nice 1970s family in Pennsylvania. Who at the age of 14, walking home from school is murdered by a man from her neighborhood. The film is narrated by Susie through-out and shows her time in what she calls “The Inbetween” the limbo like place between heaven and earth. With the greater majority of the film showing the view from her murderers side and also shows the effects and happenings of her family and how they deal with her death.
There are a lot of meanings and themes in this film which come across quite strong, from love and connection to acceptance of death and the idea of that people may never really leave us until they are ready.
With “Lord Of The Rings” director taking charge of the production i was very hopeful on “The Lovely Bones” having seen her magnificent work in the past, even if he didn’t really do “King Kong” that well. With a interesting cast of 13 year old Saoirse Ronan playing Susie, Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz and the parents of the Salmon family. Susan Sarandon popping up as the alcohol filled chain smoking grandma and Stanley Tucci as Mr Harvey the enemy and all round bad guy of the film.
Well may i just say it just does not work, the tone is just not there. If you have read the book it is beautifully written and the tone is set as the thrilling drama about life and death that it’s supposed to be. Peter Jackson has totally failed on getting that, this film which set out to be a serious themed story has been taken by Peter Jackson and blown up into a big CGI extravaganza, his depiction of the heaven like inbetween is kitsch, bad taste, it’s silly and laughable. It is far too long at 2hrs 15mins and actually in my screening a man walked out. When it comes to the cast i have nothing but praise, the majority of them really put in a solid group of performances but in saying this they’re undermined by the lack of ability Jackson has to capture the true mood of the story. We have a Susan Sarandon playing a character that is like from another film, she seems like she should be the crazy aunty in some random comedy film and not this. There is a stand out performance by Stanley Tucci as Mr Harvey, he is definitely the best performance and at one part was honestly freaked out by his character. Tucci has been getting the most award nominations and wins and rightly so, including a recent academy award nod for best supporting actor.
In the end i really feel its a shame on the cast because they do well with what they are put around, it’s bad taste and tacky in parts with a run time that could have been cut by at least 20-30 minutes. The highlight is definitely Stanley Tucci performance. Jackson just got it wrong.