Review: The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold's hauntingly beautiful story of life after death, the The Lovely Bones, has made it to the big screen, adapted as a motion picture by Peter Jackson, the current king of adaptations. Unfortunately, it doesn't translate as well as Jackson's adaptations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movie doesn't deliver on the novel's albeit complex and poignantly beautiful tale of limbo, tragedy, grief and healing.
Susie Salmon (Saorise Ronan) is a young teenager, in the throes of young love when tragedy strikes, devastating her family and leaving her in limbo. Ronan, who owned every one of her scenes in Atonement, does the same in The Lovely Bones. She continues to grow as an actress, but this time instead of a little girl, she's a coltish young teen, awkwardly bridging the gap between child and young woman, and madly infatuated with a boy at school. When her life is cruelly cut short, it's not just her family -- and her murderer -- who have to learn how to live in the aftermath. Susie has to learn how to move on after her death.
There are a lot of subtleties in the book that simply don't translate to the screen. This isn't necessarily a limitation of Jackson's skills as a director, but the media he works with. The In Between is sumptuous, but too reminiscent of What Dreams May Come, making it feel more derivative and less original than the source material. The cinematography is gorgeous, though.
Adaptations are tricky things; the more beloved the source material, the more fraught with risk. The audience familiar with the source is usually heavily invested in the original, and unforgiving of anything that deviates from their memory. It's best not to indulge in a visit to the source until after seeing a cinematic adaptation to minimize expectations.
It's not that The Lovely Bones is a bad movie, but it suffers from trying too hard. The beauty in the source material is a chance to sink into the emotions as well as the how life goes on after death. The film lacks the nuances Sebold's words evoke. It doesn't help that Mark Wahlberg doesn't measure up to the material; his performance feels somnambulant at best. Even the normally outstanding Rachel Weisz doesn't shine. Rose McIver seems to be stuck in limbo herself as Lindsey, Susie's sister, until she gets to steal the film for a few minutes when she indulges in some sleuthing. Susan Sarandon is merely comic relief and an occasional foil to other characters, more frenetic than kinetic.
The only two who truly seem to stretch are Saorise Ronan and Stanley Tucci, in a role different from anything he's done in years. But even they can't elevate The Lovely Bones into the realm of great movies to rival the source material. At best, it's merely adequate, but ultimately unsatisfying.