movie review the lovely bones

After the rape and murder, the really cool part starts

Saoirse Ronan in "The Lovely Bones."

“The Lovely Bones” is a deplorable film with this message: If you’re a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to. You can get together in heaven with the other teenage victims of the same killer, and gaze down in benevolence upon your family members as they mourn you and realize what a wonderful person you were. Sure, you miss your friends, but your fellow fatalities come dancing to greet you in a meadow of wildflowers, and how cool is that?

The makers of this film seem to have given slight thought to the psychology of teenage girls, less to the possibility that there is no heaven, and none at all to the likelihood that if there is one, it will not resemble a happy gathering of new Facebook friends. In its version of the events, the serial killer can almost be seen as a hero for liberating these girls from the tiresome ordeal of growing up and dispatching them directly to the Elysian Fields. The film’s primary effect was to make me squirmy.

It’s based on the best-seller by Alice Sebold that everybody seemed to be reading a couple of years ago. I hope it’s not faithful to the book; if it is, millions of Americans are scary. The murder of a young person is a tragedy, the murderer is a monster, and making the victim a sweet, poetic narrator is creepy. This movie sells the philosophy that even evil things are God’s will, and their victims are happier now. Isn’t it nice to think so. I think it’s best if they don’t happen at all. But if they do, why pretend they don’t hurt? Those girls are dead.

I’m assured, however, that Sebold’s novel is well-written and sensitive. I presume the director, Peter Jackson , has distorted elements to fit his own “vision,” which involves nearly as many special effects in some sequences as his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A more useful way to deal with this material would be with observant, subtle performances in a thoughtful screenplay. It’s not a feel-good story. Perhaps Jackson’s team made the mistake of fearing the novel was too dark. But its millions of readers must know it’s not like this. The target audience might be doom-besotted teenage girls — the “Twilight” crowd.

The owner of the lovely bones is named Susie Salmon ( Saoirse Ronan , a very good young actress, who cannot be faulted here). The heaven Susie occupies looks a little like a Flower Power world in the kind of fantasy that, murdered in 1973, she might have imagined. Seems to me that heaven, by definition outside time and space, would have neither colors nor a lack of colors — would be a state with no sensations. Nor would there be thinking there, let alone narration. In an eternity spent in the presence of infinite goodness, you don’t go around thinking, “Man! Is this great!” You simply are. I have a lot of theologians on my side here.

But no. From her movie-set Valhalla, Susie gazes down as her mother ( Rachel Weisz ) grieves and her father ( Mark Wahlberg ) tries to solve the case himself. There’s not much of a case to solve; we know who the killer is almost from the get-go, and, under the Law of Economy of Characters that’s who he has to be, because (a) he’s played by an otherwise unnecessary movie star, and (b) there’s no one else in the movie it could be.

Here’s something bittersweet. Weisz and Wahlberg are effective as the parents. Because the pyrotechnics are mostly upstairs with the special effects, all they need to be are convincing parents who have lost their daughter. This they do with touching subtlety. We also meet one of Susie’s grandmothers ( Susan Sarandon ), an unwise drinker who comes on to provide hard-boiled comic relief, in the Shakespearean tradition that every tragedy needs its clown. Well, she’s good, too. This whole film is Jackson’s fault.

It doesn’t fail simply because I suspect its message. It fails on its own terms. It isn’t emotionally convincing that this girl, having had these experiences and destined apparently to be 14 forever (although cleaned up and with a new wardrobe), would produce this heavenly creature. What’s left for us to pity? We should all end up like her, and the sooner the better; preferably not after being raped and murdered.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

The Lovely Bones

• Rachel Weisz as Mrs. Salmon
• Michael Imperioli as Len
• Stanley Tucci as George
• Mark Wahlberg as Mr. Salmon
• Saoirse Ronan as Susie
• Susan Sarandon as Grandma Lynn

Based on the novel by

• Alice Sebold
• Philippa Boyens

Directed by

• Peter Jackson

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The Lovely Bones Reviews

At once, the director is doing too much visually while not doing enough dramatically.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 28, 2023

Brilliant performances by all involved are about the only things that remain consistent.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Nov 29, 2020

Tucci creates a quietly masterful portrayal.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 15, 2020

I was drawn to the film because of Peter Jackson's involvement, but the creativity of the imagery did not astound me.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2020

The emotional core of The Lovely Bones should be closer to Heavenly Creatures, but Jackson has sacrificed feeling for effect.

Full Review | Jan 23, 2020

Like Jackson missed the target completely and instead hit the cat standing 30 feet away from it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2019

Despite all its promise, the film left me cold. I just never completely bought into the experience, which seemed to be calculated and lacking the heart and depth it so desperately wants to convey.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 11, 2019

Both [Saoirse] Ronan and [Stanley] Tucci are worth the price of an admission ticket.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 16, 2019

Director Peter Jackson's brilliant ability to bring fantasy to film may have been his Achilles heel here, as he dwells with signature fondness on Susie's journey to heaven. I will say, however, that the acting is spectacular.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 6, 2018

The desire for showmanship gets in the way of characterization and plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 4, 2018

Stick with this devastating, yet curiously uplifting drama as best you can, for the emotional pay-off cannot be denied.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 8, 2018

Most will hopefully see that in this very creative, authoritative film Peter Jackson preserves the characters, the theme, the dread, the delight found in the novel - and has added just enough of his own.

Full Review | May 23, 2018

It's an interesting way to tell a heartbreaking story a young girl whose life was taken away too soon, and whose family fights to pull the pieces together after their loss.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 12, 2017

This movie has about seven different tones it hops around, and it does so at all the wrong times.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jun 22, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: C | Feb 18, 2012

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Your own peace will come after you walk out, trying hard not to laugh at how crazy-bad it all is.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 4, 2011

Unshackled by earthly restraints, Jackson shifts his Weta toolsets into overdrive in a more-is-more free-for-all frenzy.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 30, 2011

The Lovely Bones is probably a much better idea for a book than it is a movie, but it's still a very good one, and those don't come along too often.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 29, 2011

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The lovely bones — film review.

Peter Jackson has changed the focus and characters to such a significant degree that his film might resonate more with those who have not read Alice Sebold's best-selling novel.

By Kirk Honeycutt , The Associated Press November 24, 2009 5:00pm

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Peter Jackson certainly is familiar with the challenges of satisfying filmgoers’ expectations, having helmed three films derived from J.R.R. Tolkien’s immensely popular “Lord of the Rings” novel and a second remake of the iconic film “King Kong.” So Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel “The Lovely Bones,” published in 2002, should be right in his wheelhouse. In this case, though, he has changed the focus and characters to such a significant degree that his film might resonate more with those who have not read the book.

Sebold’s otherworldly meditation on unspeakable tragedy and hard-earned healing has been transformed by Jackson into something akin to a supernatural suspense thriller. A philosophical story about family, memory and obsession has regrettably become a mawkish appeal to victimhood.

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Readers’ eagerness to see the film version, plus Jackson’s name above the title, should deliver a significant boxoffice take during the film’s initial release. Whether “Bones” will sustain those numbers as it expands domestically and then into foreign territories in January is unclear. This is, to Jackson’s credit, daring and deeply unsettling material.

“Bones” is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who is murdered Dec. 6, 1973. She is adjusting to her new home in heaven while watching life on Earth continue without her. Her family goes through hell — her dad having the most difficult time dealing with her disappearance — while her killer, a neighbor, covers his tracks.

Sebold’s stroke of genius is to place her heroine in heaven immediately. She can thus describe with an empathetic dispassion her own rape-murder and her family’s realization that the eldest daughter will not be coming home.

In literary terms, she is a first-person narrator and an omniscient observer: She can enter the minds of other characters to know what they’re thinking and can even see into the past.

As the years roll by, she witnesses how healing slowly comes but at great cost. A few characters even realize she never completely left; they sense her presence and, on occasion, believe they see her.

The movie, written by Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, is more concentrated, in time and focus. Nor can they get past the crime. They see their movie as a murder thriller, so the role of the killer, George Harvey, has been expanded and is played by fine actor Stanley Tucci (almost unrecognizably so).

The film ventures only about a year into a future without Susie. And, like any crime thriller, it worries about the killer and how he will get caught. It even has Susie rage in heaven against her murderer, demanding vengeance.

In shifting the emphasis, the film version must all but abandon the crumbling relationship between Susie’s dad, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), and mother, Abigail (Rachel Weisz), and dramatically alters the nature of the police detective’s (Michael Imperioli) involvement with the family.

In the novel, the father immediately senses that George killed his daughter but has no proof, so his mental deterioration makes sense. In the film, he has no clue who murdered his daughter; he just goes nuts.

Saoirse Ronan, so impressive in “Atonement,” plays Susie, and she’s terrific. She is the glue that holds the story together. Her piercing blue eyes and heartfelt anguish animate both heaven and earth.

This heaven, described only sketchily in the novel, permits Jackson the full range of his visual imagination. Jackson paints a surreal outdoor palace of changing seasons and environments with rainbow colors and swift-as-thought transitions.

Andrew Lesnie’s cinematography and Naomi Shohan’s production design make earth and heaven not-quite-authentic places. Earth is a suburban, small-town America, more idealized than real. It’s as if Susie, in heaven, imagines the town in her mind rather than as she actually sees it. Meanwhile, her heaven is a timeless fantasia that reflects her mental outlook.

The movie relies on the emotionalism of a young girl murdered and an unrepentant killer lurking nearby. It just barely has time for the story’s most colorful character, the alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon), who moves in and takes charge of the nearly dysfunctional Salmon household.

The film certainly plays well enough as a melodrama-cum-revenge thriller. The suspense of Susie’s sister (Rose McIver) breaking into George’s house to find a damning trace of her sister is pure Hitchcock. And Susie’s diaphanous appearances — and a girlfriend (Carolyn Dando) who can “see” her — suggest “The Sixth Sense.”

But a reader might regret the loss of the real issues between Susie’s mom and dad. Oddly, in the early minutes, the film hints at developing this only to drop it. Was there a longer version that underwent cuts? Indeed, more than a few characters get introduced briefly only to virtually disappear once everything boils down to victim and perpetrator.

This was never going to be an easy story to film. Using the same characters and many events, Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It’s one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it’s also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original.

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Parents' guide to, the lovely bones.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 26 Reviews
• Kids Say 104 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Haunting mystery-drama examines a child's murder.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that director Peter Jackson's drama based on Alice Sebold's best-selling book The Lovely Bones centers on the aftermath of an enormous tragedy: the death of a child (though the actual death itself isn't shown on screen). The intense subject matter -- murder and molestation --…

Why Age 16+?

One "f--k," plus occasional use of words like "hell" and &qu

Brief flashes of a man grabbing and throwing a teenager to the floor and against

A grandmother chain-smokes and drinks heavily in front of her grandchildren.

Some kissing. Implied pedophilia.

Some labels and signage are visible (Kodak, Seventeen magazine).

Any Positive Content?

Though it centers on a shocking murder, the movie takes great pains to juxtapose

Yes, there’s a murderer/pedophile involved, but besides him, the movie&#39

Parents need to know that director Peter Jackson 's drama based on Alice Sebold's best-selling book The Lovely Bones centers on the aftermath of an enormous tragedy: the death of a child (though the actual death itself isn't shown on screen). The intense subject matter -- murder and molestation -- may overwhelm younger teens. Although the movie's messages about love and loss are ultimately positive, the film is often deeply sorrowful and, at times, quite violent (images include dead bodies, bloody clothes, and more). Language includes mostly name-calling; there's also some kissing, and one older character smokes and drinks in front of children.

To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

One "f--k," plus occasional use of words like "hell" and "oh God" (as an exclamation). Also some name-calling, including “jerk off,” “moron,” and “stupid.”

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Brief flashes of a man grabbing and throwing a teenager to the floor and against the wall (though her actual death takes place off screen). He’s also shown carrying a bloody bag and soaking in a tub, his blood-stained clothing strewn on the floor. The sink is filled with bloodied water. A safe that presumably holds a corpse is repeatedly shown. The bodies of a serial killer's victims are shown in the various places where they were dumped. A teenager beats up a man with a baseball bat; the man is later shown bruised and battered.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

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Positive messages.

Though it centers on a shocking murder, the movie takes great pains to juxtapose the violence with love and domesticity. Loss, though destabilizing, is portrayed as far from decimating. Death isn’t explored as an end but a passage.

Positive Role Models

Yes, there’s a murderer/pedophile involved, but besides him, the movie's characters are decent and earnest -- as well as realistically imperfect. Though the mother reacts in a surprising way to her daughter’s death, her love for her child comes through; the father is more textbook caring. And the younger sister is impressive in her courage and determination.

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents Say (26)
• Kids Say (104)

Based on 26 parent reviews

Lots of blood and some use of foul language

What the actual…, what's the story.

Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon ( Saoirse Ronan ) has her whole life ahead of her -- filled, hopefully, with boys, a photographable world, and family. Only she doesn't. When a neighbor ( Stanley Tucci ) lures her to a bunker, she's murdered, which sends her soul in limbo to watch those she's left behind. Her mother ( Rachel Weisz ), is so shattered that she has to flee; her father ( Mark Wahlberg ) grows obsessed. Only one thing will set them all free: The capture of Susie's murderer, who continues to go about his days, trying to keep a lid on his monstrous urges.

Is It Any Good?

As Susie, Ronan is infinitely watchable: She's compelling every time she's on screen. Her sadness plumbs depths; her joy soars. And when it's clear that she's been hurt, the impact is enormous. Losing her is palpable, and that's critical, considering that she's the story's pivot point. Wahlberg and Weisz are strong, too, though perhaps not as gripping, as is Rose McIver as Susie's younger sister. But Tucci: Though terrifying, he tragically plays to type. You can spot his child molester a mile away.

THE LOVELY BONES loses its way when it spends too much time in a place where director Peter Jackson is clearly comfortable: the in-between (the place between Heaven and Earth). Painted with visually arresting CG effects, this place is a sight to behold, a lyrical middle earth. But Jackson lingers there way too long, slowing down the movie's pace. Unfortunately that comes at the expense of the family's unraveling, which seems painted in over-broad stroke.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's messages. Do the violence and intense subject matter make it harder to see the positive take-aways, or do they come through?

How does the impact of the violence in a movie like this compare to that of an action/sci-fi movie? Which affects you more? Why?

Talk about the events that lead up to Susie's murder. What lessons can be gleaned from the tragedy? Why is Susie stuck in the in-between?

How did Susie's death affect everyone, including herself? Do these reactions seem believable? How does everyone find peace?

Movie Details

• In theaters : January 15, 2010
• On DVD or streaming : April 20, 2010
• Cast : Mark Wahlberg , Rachel Weisz , Saoirse Ronan
• Director : Peter Jackson
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 135 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language
• Last updated : February 13, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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• User reviews

The Lovely Bones

Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal... Read all Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal. Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

• Peter Jackson
• Philippa Boyens
• Rachel Weisz
• Mark Wahlberg
• Saoirse Ronan
• 801 User reviews
• 265 Critic reviews
• 42 Metascore
• 10 wins & 46 nominations total

Top cast 99+

• Abigail Salmon

• Jack Salmon

• Susie Salmon

• Grandma Lynn

• George Harvey

• Len Fenerman

• Lindsey Salmon

• Buckley Salmon

• Ruth Connors

• (as Nikki Soohoo)

• Samuel Heckler

• Brian Nelson

• Principal Caden

• Mr. Connors
• Susie Salmon (aged 3 years)

• Flora Hernandez
• (as Stefania Owen)
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Saoirse Ronan landed the role of Susie Salmon based on an audition tape she sent in. They were so impressed by the tape that no meetings or further auditions were necessary before offering her the lead role in this movie.
• Goofs Susie is killed the 6th of December. In Pennsylvania, by December there would be little to no foliage left on the trees by then, yet when the detectives go from home to home, you see full trees and some with autumn leaves-more like a day from early October.

[last lines]

Susie Salmon : [voiceover] When my mother came to my room, I realized that all this time, I'd been waiting for her. I had been waiting so long, I was afraid she wouldn't come.

Abigail Salmon : [whispering] I love you, Susie.

Susie Salmon : [voiceover] Nobody notices when we leave. I mean, the moment when we really choose to go. At best you might feel a whisper, or the wave of a whisper, undulating down. My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Susie. I was 14 years old, when I was murdered, on December 6, 1973. I was here for a moment. And then I was gone. I wish you all a long and happy life.

• Connections Featured in The Paul O'Grady Show: Episode dated 27 November 2009 (2009)
• Soundtracks 1/1 (1978) Written by Brian Eno , Rhett Davies and Robert Wyatt Performed by Brian Eno Courtesy Of Virgin Records Ltd. Under License From EMI Film & Television Music

User reviews 801

Pearls before swine.

• Jul 25, 2011

Everything New on Paramount+ in December

• How long is The Lovely Bones? Powered by Alexa
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• Is "The Lovely Bones" based on a book?
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• January 15, 2010 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• New Zealand
• Official Facebook
• Desde mi cielo
• Royersford, Pennsylvania, USA
• Dreamworks Pictures
• WingNut Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $65,000,000 (estimated)
• $44,114,232
• Dec 13, 2009
• $93,621,340
• Runtime 2 hours 15 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Movie Review | 'The Lovely Bones'

Gazing Down, From a Suburb of Heaven, at an Earthly Purgatory

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

• Dec. 10, 2009

We all like children, and — at least in our capacity as moviegoers, book-club members and consumers of true-life melodrama — we seem to like them best when they’re abused, endangered or dead. Nothing else is quite so potent a symbol of violated innocence, a spur to pious sentiment or a goad to revenge as a child in peril. This is hardly news (Charles Dickens made a nice living trafficking in the suffering of minors), but for some reason the past decade has seen an epidemic of cinematic and literary crimes against the young.

“The Lovely Bones,” Alice Sebold’s 2002 best seller, now a film directed by Peter Jackson, stands out as a singularly bold and complex treatment of this grim and apparently inexhaustible theme. In spite of the horrific act at the center of the story — the rape, murder and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl — the novel is not depressing or assaultive but rather, somewhat perversely, warm, hopeful and even occasionally funny.

Ms. Sebold pushes the dead-child narrative to an emotional extreme, and at the same time undermines its exploitive tendencies, by means of a simple and radical formal device. She makes the victim, a daughter of ’70s suburbia named Susie Salmon (“like the fish”), an omniscient, beyond-the-grave narrator, with a lively voice and a comfortable perch in the afterlife from which to survey the doings of her family, her friends and the neighbor who killed her. The novel is conceived with enough audacity to make this gimmick intriguing, and executed with enough art to make it effective.

Mr. Jackson’s film, from a script he wrote with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, his frequent collaborators, shows less audacity and too much art. Susie’s unearthly home, in the book a minimally sketched, nondenominational purgatory where the dead loiter on their way to heaven and keep tabs on unfinished business down on earth, has been expanded into a digitally rendered Wonderland of rioting metaphors, crystal seas and floating topiary. It’s a mid-’70s art-rock album cover brought to life (and complemented by a score composed by the ’70s art-rock fixture Brian Eno), and while its trippy vistas are sometimes ravishing, they are also distracting. “Heaven,” a Talking Heads song once pointed out, is “a place where nothing ever happens.”

Accordingly Mr. Jackson’s interest in the “in-between,” as this suburb of heaven is called, is primarily visual. The drama is all down below, where the surviving members of the Salmon family contend with the loss of their eldest child. Susie’s sister, Lindsey, is played by Rose McIver; her brother, Buckley, by Christian Thomas Ashdale, while George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), the reclusive, seething killer, prunes his rosebushes and decorates dollhouses. By all appearances he has gotten away with his crime, and Susie hovers in the in-between partly in the hope that she might find a way to bring him to justice.

She is, in any case, obsessed with the lives that go on without her, in particular with the ways her siblings and friends and father (Mark Wahlberg, agonized) and mother (Rachel Weisz, narcotized) deal with losing her, something the audience never has to endure. We are always in Susie’s company, soothed by her voice-over narration and tickled by her coltish high spirits. This puts a curious distance between us and most of the characters in the film — it makes us, in effect, Susie’s fellow ghosts — a detachment that Mr. Jackson’s stylish, busy technique makes more acute. His young heroine, played with unnerving self-assurance and winning vivacity by Saoirse Ronan, cares desperately about the poor living souls left in her wake, but it is not clear that Mr. Jackson shares her concern.

Yes, he grooves on the wild color schemes and peculiar fashions of 1973. (Richard Kelly had a similar field day with 1976-vintage patterned wallpaper and fat neckties in “The Box,” his recent entry in the suburban-’70s-supernatural sweepstakes.) And this director’s fondness for odd angles, intense close-ups and trick perspectives — he films one scene as if peering out from the rooms of a dollhouse — animates a drab Pennsylvania landscape of shopping malls and half-developed farmland. As a pictorial artifact “The Lovely Bones” is gorgeous. It pulses and blooms and swells with bright hues and strange vistas.

But it does not move. Or, rather, as it skitters and lurches from set piece to the next, papering the gaps with swirls of montage, it never achieves the delicate emotional coherence that would bring the story alive. My point is not that Mr. Jackson and his fellow screenwriters have taken undue liberties with the book, a complaint that some other critics have made. On the contrary, the problem with this “Lovely Bones” is that it dithers over hard choices, unsure of which aspects of Ms. Sebold’s densely populated, intricately themed novel should be emphasized and which might be winnowed or condensed.

The filmmakers’ evident affection for the book expresses itself as a desperate scramble to include as much of it as possible, which leaves the movie feeling both overcrowded and thin. The anguish in the Salmon household is dutifully observed: dad smashes his collection of model ships, mom withdraws and then flees to California, and in the middle of it grandma arrives, a brassy boozer played by Susan Sarandon. But there is a puppet-show quality to their grief, and also to the puzzlement of the detective (Michael Imperioli) investigating Susie’s death and the sorrow of her schoolmates, Ruth (Carolyn Dando) and Ray (Reece Ritchie), the object of Susie’s first and last major crush.

The title of “The Lovely Bones” refers to the relationships among these people that knit together in Susie’s absence. In Mr. Jackson’s version, though, they are hastily and haphazardly assembled, so that nothing quite fits together. The movie is a serial-killer mystery, a teenage melodrama, a domestic tragedy and a candy-hued ghost story — a cinematic version of the old parlor game in which disparate graphic elements are assembled into a single strange picture. It’s sometimes called Exquisite Corpse.

“The Lovely Bones” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The murder of a child, discreetly handled.

THE LOVELY BONES

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Peter Jackson; written by Mr. Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, based on the novel by Alice Sebold; director of photography, Andrew Lesnie; edited by Jabez Olssen; production designer, Naomi Shohan; music by Brian Eno; produced by Mr. Jackson, Ms. Walsh, Carolynne Cunningham and Aimée Peyronnet; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 19 minutes.

WITH: Mark Wahlberg (Jack Salmon), Rachel Weisz (Abigail Salmon), Susan Sarandon (Grandma Lynn), Stanley Tucci (George Harvey), Michael Imperioli (Len Fenerman), Saoirse Ronan (Susie Salmon), Rose McIver (Lindsey Salmon), Christian Thomas Ashdale (Buckley Salmon), Carolyn Dando (Ruth) and Reece Ritchie (Ray Singh).

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The Lovely Bones Review

19 Feb 2010

135 minutes

Lovely Bones, The

The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s surprising best seller, is at least five films in one and therefore the perfect film for these credit crunch times. Over its 135 minute running time — it carries this load lightly — Jackson manages to squeeze in a touching teen romance, a gripping portrait of a serial killer, a family falling apart drama, an expressionistic after-life fantasy, a police procedural flick and, in one gripping set-piece, a fantastic retread of Rear Window. Jackson may not keep all these multiple plates spinning successfully, but this is bold, daring original filmmaking, with arguably more emotional and intellectual meat to chew on than either the Rings trilogy or Kong.

The Lovely Bones, both book and film, opens with a close-up image of a snowman trapped in a snow globe. The image reverberates around the entire movie. From Susie Salmon sitting on her heavenly gazebo narrating her own life following her brutal murder, to her father Jack (Wahlberg, good hair) building intricate model ships inside delicate bottles to her mother Abigail (Weisz) keeping Susie’s room in pristine untouched condition to her killer George Harvey (a terrific, meticulous, barely recognisable Tucci) carefully tending to his miniature doll house, these are characters looking to build ideal worlds but who eventually become ensnared by them, unable to move on, tethered by their pain. If this makes Lovely Bones sound like a draining downer, it shouldn’t: it is poignant, gripping, emotionally alive (but never sentimental) and gorgeous. All this from the man who brought you Meet The Feebles.

With its heady teen protagonist and themes of murder intertwined with the fantastical, on paper this felt like Jackson returning to the intimate, small-scale milieu of Heavenly Creatures (the fascination with the afterlife connecting with the real world also touches base with Jackson’s forgotten flick The Frighteners). Eschewing Sebold’s almost comic vision of the afterlife as a kitsch heavenly high school, Jackson’s vision of “the in-between”, a holding pen between Earth and Heaven, is a cornucopia of digitally enhanced vistas, flower iconography, quickly shifting landscapes and startling memorable images: a horrific bathroom vignette, a fleet of ships in bottles bobbing on a sea, a gazebo planted firmly in the middle of a midnight lake with the moon as a clock. Occasionally it strays deep into Rainbow Brite territory but perhaps that’s the point. Accompanied by Brian Eno’s lovely ambient noodlings, this is Jackson seeing and feeling purgatory through a 14 year-old’s subconscious, a 48 year-old man fluent in the language of ‘70s tween dreams.

But the best stuff doesn’t have a single pixel in it, meaning the afterlife segments eventually feel like stop-gaps. A heart-stopping piece of detective work by Susie’s sister Lindsay (Rose McIver who grows in stature throughout the film) is brilliant suspense cinema. The first half an hour is terrific stuff, sketching Susie’s life — all Partridge Family posters, Snoopy pendants and dreams of being a photographer — in the warm, faded tones of a ‘70s photograph. There is a lovely discussion between Susie and her boozy grandmother — Susan Sarandon in comic relief mode — about the thrill of first kisses and Susie’s subsequent crush on English hunk Ray is movingly etched, further enhancing the heartbreak of her life cut short. Saoirse Ronan may be the nemesis of spell check but she is emerging as a Jodie Foster for the noughties, making Susie spirited, smart, intense and adorable.

Sebold purists may carp that Jackson soft peddles the pivotal act of murder but, while he is not graphic, Jackson nails the emotional violence through both Harvey’s quiet insistence and telling images of creepy antique toys. Despite strong performances and moments from Wahlberg and Weisz, the movie doesn’t do full justice to the crumbling relationship of Susie’s parents — it occasionally feels glossed over, hinting at things but never paying them off. If that means there is a Director’s Cut on the way, then all the better. Spending more time in Susie Salmon’s sometimes harrowing, sometimes beautiful, always compelling world is something to rejoice in.

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