REVIEW – The Lovely Bones

Published on: 17th January, 2010

REVIEW - The Lovely Bones  | read this item

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I was a huge fan of Peter Jackson when I was younger. I first saw Bad Taste around 1989 and was immediately hooked. He had a zany sense of humour and his do-it-yourself effects appealed to me as a child as they lacked sophistication and were crudely thrown together. Braindead (Dead Alive) further cemented this opinion for me, but as he moved closer and closer to Hollywood I began to lose interest. Heavenly Creatures was a unique experience but seemed a little too pretentious and boring, whilst The Frighteners was a fun-yet-shallow romp. But neither his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, nor his three-hour King Kong remake, did anything for me, and I began to feel that maybe he would never interest me again. So I approached The Lovely Bones with caution.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) was a shy and awkward fourteen-year old girl who mysteriously vanished from her neighbourhood one afternoon in December 1973, never to be seen again. The perpetrator was George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), a middle-aged, lonely man who lived across the road and had developed an unhealthy obsession with her, eventually managing to convince Susie to visit his new hideout which he claimed was for the local children to play in. Unable to cope with the grief, Susie’s father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), is determined to discover the truth and devotes his life to finding his daughter, eventually threatening to destroy his marriage with Susie’s mother, Abigail (Rachel Weisz).

Having felt uninspired by both The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, I hadn’t followed Jackson’s career for many years and so was unaware of The Lovely Bones until shortly before its release. I was also unfamiliar with the novel of which it was based upon, written by Alice Sebold and published back in 2002. The casting also did little for me: being unfamiliar with Ronan, indifferent about Weisz and unimpressed by most of Wahlberg’s previous performances (with the exception of his angry rants in The Departed). So with little to interest me, I must admit that I was not entirely optimistic when the credits began to roll. But boy, was I wrong.

First and foremost, this is Jackson’s most accomplished film to date for one simple reason: he has finally managed to find a way to balance his unique visuals with an involving story. The Lovely Bones is the first film in his entire career that has displayed genuine emotions, with Wahlberg in particular giving a strong turn as the torn-apart father who refuses to let his daughter go. The emotions do not feel unnecessary or forced but are the very essence of the story. The fantasy aspect of the movie shows Susie trapped in a world in between the living and Heaven, unable to move forward until her death is resolved. This may sound a little like the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore hit Ghost but the two films are completely different.

Ronan gives what must be the breakthrough performance of the year, displaying a variety of emotions and a mature performance for an actress who was just thirteen years old at the time of filming. Despite having been nominated for an Academy Award in 2008 for her role in Atonement, it is The Lovely Bones that demonstrates her emotional range. Another actor worth mentioning is Tucci, who is extremely menacing and believable as the creepy neighbour with a dark secret. Susan Sarandon is entertaining as Susie’s alcohol-loving, free-spirited grandmother Michael Imperioli adds strong support as Len Fenerman, the cop in charge of the case.

The majority of the $100m budget clearly went on the visuals which portrays the world in between ours and Heaven as a magical landscape that is full of metaphors that link the person back to their former life. Here, Susie is able to watch over her father and sister, sister, Lindsey (Rose McIver), who eventually becomes Harvey’s latest obsession. These sequences in the afterlife are mostly CGI and may at times come across as a little too much, but Jackson provides enough interesting images to justify this use of digital technology. The Lovely Bones certainly isn’t a fun movie, in fact at times it’s a little sad and depressing, but it is extremely effective and boast a number of career-best performances. Finally, Jackson has grown up.

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