The Lovely Bones

Anyone familiar with the work of Peter Jackson can see why he was attracted to adapting Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones. The book tells the story of a teen-age girl who is murdered and then watches over her family as they deal with her disappearance, which slowly evolves into grief over her death. She resides in an afterlife that is vividly described, and given Jackson's fanciful work on films like Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he jumped at the chance to create a vision of the girl's heaven.

The result is quite striking. The photography and production design are luscious to behold. There seems to be some Buddhist influence, as the central part of the girl's afterlife is a large tree that could be interpreted as a Bodhi tree. The film is saturated with color. It all looks great.

Unfortunately, Jackson seems to be less interested in the meat of the story, and the film ultimately is not very compelling. It hits most of the plot points in the book, but the result earns a shrug of indifference.

Saorsie Ronan gives a very assured performance as Susie, a typical teenager in Pennsylvania in 1973. She is lured to an underground bunker constructed by her neighbor, Stanley Tucci. He murders her (off-screen, thankfully) and her family: father Mark Wahlberg; mother Rachel Weisz; grandmother Susan Sarandon and a sister and brother cope with her disappearance (her body has not been found, but a hat and a great deal of blood point to a grisly outcome). Her case in investigated by an earnest detective, Michael Imperioli, but after several months pass it seems that she will never be found. Wahlberg becomes obsessed with conducting his own investigation, while Weisz has to leave, with Sarandon filling in for her. All the while Susie gambols in her heaven, attended to by another helpful child.

There are a few scenes that work, especially one in which Susie's sister breaks into Tucci's house looking for evidence, but it sticks out because it could be from any suspense film. The Lovely Bones, in least in the novel, attempted to be more about the process of grief. That doesn't really translate here. There's much more in the book about why the mother leaves, and a subplot involving a neighborhood girl who acts a conduit between dead Susie and her very live boyfriend gets cursory treatment in the film.

Jackson never finds the right tone in the film. There's an excess of gooey sentimentalism--heaven as a Hallmark card (much of it looks like those inspirational posters you see hanging in businesses) and a slapstick comic scene involving Sarandon's woeful attempt at parenting (she's one of those grandmas who wear furs and smokes like a chimney) is ill-considered.

Tucci received an Oscar nomination for the role, and I can't protest it, though I thought his work in Julie & Julia was more interesting. He has clearly given the role more shading than the writers did, as on the surface the character--a single man who builds dollhouses, has a really bad haircut, and a strange laugh--screams child molester.