REVIEW: ‘The Lovely Bones’

I have mixed feelings about Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones,” and I don’t know why.’ I’ve had several days to think about the movie, and I still don’t know how I feel about it.

Based on a phenomenal book by Alice Seibold, “The Lovely Bones” follows the spirit of a young girl murdered in 1973, the man who killed her, and the family left behind, struggling with their loss. Both the book and the movie make no mystery of Susie Salmon’s murder, or the man who committed it. It’s certainly not a classic mystery, or whodunit. Where the story has such allure comes from the way people deal with grief and loss… and Susie’s observation of those left behind as she wanders “the in-between.”

When you look at its individual elements, “The Lovely Bones” has the ingredients of a classic. Peter Jackson – who certainly knows his way around a book-to-film adaptation – takes great care to keep the essence of Alice Seibold’s book intact in the transition to the big screen. It’s not as slavish in its devotion to accuracy as, say, “The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy, and people expecting a shot-for-shot rendition will be disappointed. That portion’s fine, and it’s not the source of my confusing reaction to the movie.

Mark Walhberg and Rachel Weisz are serviceable as Susie’s parents, running through the stages of grief and coping in their unique ways. (We’ve seen better work from both actors, to be certain.) Susan Sarandon gets to grind her molars on massive chunks of scenery as Grandma Lynn, a pill-and-boozy archetypical nihilist. All of the performances pale next to Saoirse Ronan as Susie, and Stanley Tucci as the murderer-next-door George Harvey. We know Tucci’s pedigree, and it’s almost shocking to see how repulsive he makes Harvey, the man who blends in so perfectly until you’re privy to his evil. Ronan, however, is the real revelation. Her work is alternately breathtaking and heartbreaking, and the audience hangs on her every expression of sorrow, joy and bewilderment. She was a spitfire in “City Of Ember,” and more than ready for her close-up.

If Jackson’s involved, then you know the killer effects house WETA will have a hand in crafting some amazing visual work. The ever-changing environments are wonderful, dreamlike and, at times, breathtaking. Sadly, they’re also evocative of similar visuals from Robin Williams’ “What Dreams May Come.” It’s an unfair comparison, but impossible to ignore – both sets of afterlife-scapes are cut from the same brilliant cloth.

Everything broken down seems to work when you look at the parts individually, but the movie never seems to gel as a cohesive experience. It’s a melange of great components that never seems to quite come together well enough to be wholly engrossing for the viewer. What works so well for a novel – where the writer has the room and space to let the narrative breathe and stretch its metaphoric legs – tends to hamstring a movie that is limited to a couple of hours and an audience that requires forward momentum.

Perhaps “The Lovely Bones” is best described as a dish that comes out of the kitchen and doesn’t quite please the palate. All of the ingredients are there for a wonderful entrée, but something’s just a little off in the preparation.