Movie Review: The Lovely Bones

Title: The Lovely Bones

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci
Released: February 19th 2010
Running Time: 136 minutes
Grade Rating: C+/B-

When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.

It's true, I don't really do movie reviews but as The Lovely Bones is a book to movie, I decided to write one. Straight after watching The Lovely Bones for the first time, less than twenty-four hours ago, I knew that I was dissapointed. After hearing so many things from my friends, I was so excited to finally watch it. What I thought was going to be a brilliant movie, fell rather flat in my opinion, and here's why...
 

I haven't read The Lovely Bones but it was fairly obvious to me that the book would be different to the movie. The story in itself covers many different emotions. At times it's quite chilling but within the space of two minutes, it could revert back to a cheerful, happy tone. It is said that the film is all about hope and dealing with someone who has died but I didn't find that. Apparently the book isn't scary and the tension is less dramatic. In the movie, there is tension just around the corner and whilst some may say the scenes aren't scary as such, they are quite gruesome and dark. I think Peter Jackson focused too much on the eerie, dark parts of the film instead of digging deeper beneath the surface. I felt as if everything was just on the surface. There wasn't much character developement and nothing was fully explained. It was as if someone was reading a two hour long, brief overview of the book with major details picked out. When Susie's mum left, she just left and we had to except it. When she came back, everything was fine and dandy and that was it. When we found out that Ruth Connors could see Susie, we just had to except the fact she could. How could she see her? Why didn't she tell anyone?

 

On the note of characters, I thought that there was hardly any need for two or three in particular. Ruth Connors is described as the local weird girl. When Susie dies, she discovers that Ruth can see her. And that's it. Why was Ruth even in the film? She had about ten minutes total screen time and the fact that she could see Susie's spirit hardly even mattered. Susie's love interest Ray Singh also had about ten minutes screen time. I think in the book, he's quite a big character but in the film he didn't need to be there. He didn't change or alter the plot in any way shape or form. He was just swinging in the back like a prop. On the other hand, I thought Susie, Lindsey and George Harvey where excellently portrayed. Saoirse Ronan who plays Susie is an incredible young actress and really brought her character to life. Lindsey was my favourite character. She was very brave and caring and I also thought that she was quite well developed, even though she didn't get as much screen time as she should've had. George Harvey was extremely creepy to say the least but I still would've liked to have learnt more about him. Why was he doing these things? He just sort of came out of nowhere and started killing people even though that wasn't the case.

 

The director, Peter Jackson, focused too much on the imagery and graphics of the movie instead of on the plot developement. The wonderful world of the in-between was too much of a contrast between the thrilling scenes, it felt like the two didn't go together. It would go from fun and frolicking to death and chopping up bodies and putting them in safes. Ick. The plot is too simple. It doesn't convey the wrought-out emotions with much gravity. When Susie died, I felt as if it never really hit-home. We knew she was dead but nothing was ever really shocking. There wasn't really a point in the story where the characters said, 'Okay, it's final. She's dead.' It failed to capture the right mood and clever story-telling. The plot was never really about the horrific aftermath of disgusting murder, it was more focused on the crime and discovering who the killer was. The only character that cried about Susie's death was her mother and that only lasted for about twenty seconds before she goes galavanting across the world which is still left unexplained.

 

Despite my negative review, The Lovely Bones wasn't a terrible film. It was quite entertaining but that was as far as I would go. The emotional developements between the characters and plot where put in disarray due to the fancy graphics. An not-quite-there film with a phenominal cast.