REVIEW - Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2010)

The Lovely Bones is Peter Jackson's recent adaptation of the 2002 Alice Sebold book of the same name. Set in 1970s Pennsylvania it centre's on the murder of Susie Salmon, played by Saoirse Ronan, the attempts by her family to deal with the grief of losing their daughter/sister and also the gradual uncovering of her murderer. The whole story is narrated by the dead Susie, who looks over her family and the murderer from an in-between world, seemingly between the physical world and Heaven. This is a somewhat similar concept to Noe's Enter The Void but the two films are otherwise very different. Where Noe's film deliberately confronted the viewer throughout, Jackson constantly pulls his punches.

The film begins rooted in the real world as we are introduced to the Salmon family, Susie's friends and the creepy neighbourhood child murderer George Harvet, played by Stanley Tucci.. Susie is a pleasant 14 year old girl, intelligent but not bookish, sweet but not too saccharin, she likes taking photographs, she has a high school crush, she is a good approximation of a relatable teenage girl. She is also deftly played by Saoirse, who is very close to Susie's age in real life. Unfortunately, despite the premise, the film gives Susie's character very little in terms of interesting dialogue, plot development, or characterisation. One element missing from the film which is detailed in the book, is the rape and murder of Susie. Although we are made aware of the murder, Jackson cuts away before anything is seen and the rape present in the book is not even mentioned in the film. Including these scenes or referencing them more fully would have been deeply unpleasant but it is this unpleasantness that would have helped make the film more emotionally resonant and help counter the frankly silly flights into CGI fantasy.

The film constantly cuts back to scenes set in the inbetween world where Susie is joined by a reasonably irritating companion Holly, whose final act twist is painfully obvious from the moment she is introduced. The scenes in the afterlife are well put together and full of psychologically appropriate symbolism but left me emotionally cold. The scenes felt more like showy CG than an important element to the story. There is one exception though in the scene where Susie re-imagines George cleaning up after the murder which is quite stunning and brings some of the horror lacking in the depiction of what is an appalling act. There are overlaps between the inbetween world and the real world and there is even a character who can see Susie, kind of. This character, Clarissa, seems baffling pointless in the story, with really only one significant scene, and her special ability only adds an extra level of ludicrousness to the film. She contacts Ray, the boy Susie has a crush on, and they form a friendship that affords Susie the opportunity to get the first kiss, in manner reminiscent of Ghost, she has always dreamed of. The scene feels so massively contrived and clumsy that it loses any of the aching emotional beauty the scene could have captured.

Whilst Susie exists in the inbetween world her family slowly crumbles as her father becomes obsessed with finding the murderer, constantly in contact with the investigating detective Len, played by the underused Michael Imperiolo, her mother breaks down and even abandons the family and the other daughter Lindsey becomes more and more unsettled by the creepy neighbour George. In order to keep the house in order the Grandmother is called in to help out. This role, yet another mostly pointless one, is played by Susan Sarandon whose performance is actually quite amusing, but tonally completely out of place.

Gradually the father and Lindsey both come to conclusion that it is George who is responsible for the death of Susie leading Lindsey to search his house, in the film's best scene. As Lindsey searches and George arrives home there is an incredible sense of tension and it is an excellent sequence in an otherwise disappointing film. This scene as well is a sharp contrast to the unintentionally hilarious scene in which the father, Mark Whalberg, realises that George is the killer.

Full of classic Jackson tropes such as the use of wide-angle close-ups and wild fantasy imaginings it is a shame that this does not reach the impressive heights of his previous films. A lot in Lovely Bones has been done much better in his previous films. The use of practical effects and CGI in both the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and King Kong add to the stories in a way that Lovely Bones is lacking. The ideas surrounding youth, and the loss of innocence in teenage girls is more poignantly delivered in Heavenly Creatures and I would even argue that Frightners offered a more interesting take on the afterlife than Lovely Bones ever manages to capture.

Shot entirely on the RedOne digital camera, the sumptuous colours in the 70s recreations are striking and there are elements to the CGI that are impressive to view on the big screen but any amount of stunning visuals cannot take away from the sum of it's parts which sadly leaves a pretty sizeable failure. Jackson can do so much better and it is a shame that Lovely Bones is not a good addition to his wonderfully diverse and enjoyable filmography.