The Lovely Bones Reviews

I have read the book. I loved it, I thought it was both chilling and heartbreaking with a fine story and credible characters. I do think it is much better than the film, which was solid enough but lacking a strong emotional core.

I will start with the film's faults. The story is a very intriguing one, but it is quite slow complete with holes and any parts that strived to be heartbreaking came across as mawkish. The script is quite weak often, particularly with Susan Sarandon's character in the sense that it is never quite sure which direction it wants to go. But what hurt the film most was some aspects of Peter Jackson's direction. Jackson is a good director don't get me wrong, but he does make some decisions that detract from the impact of the story rather than enhance it. Especially with the CGI, not that it was bad CGI in fact it looked quite good, what I mean was that there was a complete overload of it and I think some of it was unnecessary.

However, the film does look absolutely beautiful, with beautiful scenery and cinematography. The score gives a haunting, eerie and intoxicating quality too. While the story is flawed, there is a good atmosphere especially in the more chilling scenes, where they are quite chilling and that's an understatement. Apart from two performances, the acting is quite good. The best performance comes from the very promising child actress Saiorse Ronan, who is just tremendous here. Stanley Tucci is very chillingly effective too, and Mark Wahlberg is surprisingly good. The two performances I wasn't so taken with were Rachel Weisz, who is wasted, and the normally solid Susan Sarandon, who overplays quite badly.

All in all, an okay if inferior adaptation. 6/10 Bethany Cox

An amazingly magical film, but a depressingly sad tragedy. The serial killer is portrayed professionally well.

--I remember seeing lots of trailers on t.v. for the film, never saw it in the theater, yet I was determined to see it. Peter Jackson does a Phenomenal job directing this wonder. I honestly thought I was going to hate this and yea..proved me wrong.

--I'll admit I teared up during this film, it's obvious as to why and I won't give anything away. CGI wasn't great and rather some was dumb..however, it was necessary to portray what Susan was experiencing and some of it was quite exceptional and lovely. I bet while reading the book, your imagination goes through the roof. Saoirse Ronan was..well...reeeally good. Like definitely deserved the Oscar nominee. She's going to have a GRAND future. Stanley Tucci was of course perfect for the role, I got frustrated at his character(as we all should), but that's how excellent he was. An overall superb cast. The whole concept of the film is astounding and everything ties in, with plenty of scenes involving reminiscing. Wahlberg and Weisz are great also! OOOO and Sarandon brings in some humor which I enjoyed.

Also I bet if you were high, you'd freak out.

Dislikes: CGI, some even most of it was fake looking and lame. It was important to the romance, imagination and wonder to the film tho. the length could have been cut down a tad.

Rating: 9.2/10

It's not enough to call THE LOVELY BONES a disappointment. This is a cinematic failure of monumental proportions. Some may assume that my expectations were too high because Peter Jackson is responsible for The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which is my #1 all-time favorite film). Certainly ONE of the reasons why this film SHOULD have been at least GOOD is the fact that Jackson did such a flawless job translating LOTR to film. But it's more than that. There's the fact that 15 years ago Jackson gave us a masterpiece in HEAVENLY CREATURES, which (much like THE LOVELY BONES) makes an attempt to meld the beautiful images of an ethereal world with the harsh emotional reality of the physical world. The difference between both films in terms of their success at that attempt could not be any bigger: THE LOVELY BONES is nothing but a set of "pretty" images that don't always connect effectively with the film's emotional component, and even when they do, you just don't care, because the emotional component of the film is handled so poorly. This is even harder to believe in light of the truly magnificent source material that Jackson had to work with here. As hard as it may seem to believe, the book is not only much more effective in how it evokes images, but it's also a thousand times more successful in its development of the plot and characters.

Wrong notes start being hit right off the bat in THE LOVELY BONES, so much that there are even inconsistencies in the dialogue. Susie (Saoirse Ronan) is at the mall with her grandmother (Susan Sarandon), and Susie is mesmerized as she watches Ray (Reece Ritchie), a cute boy who goes to her school. The grandmother immediately notices that Susie's attracted to him, but Susie tells her that Ray doesn't even know she exists. A few seconds later, the grandmother asks Susie whether or not they have kissed yet - why would the script have her ask this question, if Susie had already told her that the two of them haven't even spoken? If this were the only flaw in THE LOVELY BONES, it'd be an insignificant quibble, but unfortunately, it's only the beginning. The eventual "romance" that SUPPOSEDLY develops between Susie and Ray is based on one half-assed, shockingly short scene in which Susie asks Ray what they have in common, and he responds "Don't you know?" After this question is asked and a kiss ALMOST occurs, we're supposed to believe that these two are in love, and that Susie's death will have a massive emotional impact on him. Where is the development? That one scene does NOTHING to establish a connection between Susie and Ray, and it renders the relationship between Ray and Susie's spirit completely artificial and impossible to feel sympathy for. The character of Ray is handled terrifically in Alice Sebold's book. Here, the scenes that he takes part in are completely flat, and the fact that the awesome character of his mother was totally excluded from the film is completely ridiculous.

If the scenes involving Susie's family were any better, the film would still have hope for some level of success, but the thud of failure in these scenes is every bit as resounding. After Susie is murdered, a few scenes ensue, and suddenly, one character states that it's been 11 months since Susie disappeared. My eyes widened at that point, and the question I asked myself was: "Where is the grief and the desperation from the family? We've hardly seen any of it since she disappeared." Then I realized what had been happening. The scenes after Susie's murder eschewed showing the family's efforts to find her and the devastating effects of their failure to find any clues, and instead decided to show us an unnecessary amount of images of Susie's spirit prancing around the grassy fields of the "world" she has now entered in her afterlife. It's not that I have a problem with the film's exploration of where Susie's soul goes after she dies. That's an integral part of the story. What I do have a problem with is that the film fails so miserably at balancing that side of the story with the emotional turmoils experienced by her family members.

There's such a thing as an exaggerated amount of symbolism, and this becomes more of a problem when there's little need or sense to be found in said symbolism. There's no doubt that this is one of the many issues to be had with THE LOVELY BONES. There are too many scenes in which it's impossible to escape the feeling that random images are being thrown our way for the sake of making the film seem technically striking and more meaningful than it actually is. There's a particularly bothersome sequence in which we're forced several times to watch the same image of Susie riding her bicycle in front of her parents, saying "Hey, dad, look at me!" It's the sort of thing that makes you want to yell "Okay, I get it already!" to the screen. The character of Susie's little brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) hardly gets any screen time, but he does pop up at one point to conveniently announce that "Susie's in the in-between." Where he got this feeling from is impossible to know because the film doesn't tell us, because it's too busy showing us images of prairies. A scene towards the end in which Susie starts discovering the other victims of her killer is a TOTAL mess and feels absolutely misplaced - there's NO comparison to how well this is handled in Sebold's book.

There are two intense high points in this story that are supposed to hit the toughest emotional blows. The first one is, of course, Susie's death at the hands of her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). What does the film do with this sequence? Nothing. Jackson makes the unacceptable mistake of toning this down to ensure a PG-13 rating, and this is easily the most significant error committed in this film. The story may be about a 14-year-old girl, but there's no doubt that this is an adult tale. This film is NOT supposed to be aimed at the same audience that gets in line to see the TWILIGHT films. Ironically, THE LOVELY BONES is such a bad movie that, as it turns out, this year's entry to the TWILIGHT franchise (NEW MOON) is actually a better film. If you had told me at this point last year that that would be my opinion, I would've laughed incredibly hard. The second high point of the story comes towards the end, a brilliant moment in which Susie and Ray are able to consummate their love for one another despite the fact that Susie is no longer a living human. Once again, the desire to keep things PG-13 gets in the way here... then again, as I mentioned, the subplot of Susie and Ray's romance is handled so poorly from the very beginning that it probably wouldn't have worked, anyway.

Saoirse Ronan's performance is fine, but leagues below the stunning work she did in 2007's ATONEMENT. Even worse, in her voiceover, Jackson apparently forced her to deliver her lines with a constant sense of wonder that is ONLY appropriate for the Heaven scenes, and not AT ALL appropriate for the scenes in which she watches her family (if anyone had doubts that the film really does give too much weight to the scenes in the afterlife and too little to the human, emotional component, here's all the evidence you need). The only remarkable performance to be found in the film is that of Rachel Weisz, as Susie's mother; unfortunately, she gets too little screen time, so we don't get the reprieve that her acting could've given us from the sheer mediocrity of everything else. As Susie's father, Mark Wahlberg gives a lot of bewildered stares, and um... that's about it. A sequence in which his character calls the detective to start giving off a list of names of possible suspects who may have killed Susie feels rushed and dumb, rather than giving off the sense of desperation that needs to be conveyed at that point of the film.

But the biggest disappointments in terms of acting come from the two actors who could've very easily given Oscar-worthy performances. The first is Susan Sarandon, as Grandma Lynn, who, in the book, is a delightfully wacky character, but in this film, Sarandon's facial expressions are largely blank, and much like Weisz's character, her screen time is awfully limited. Grandma Lynn should've been the comedic relief of this movie. But again, no relief at all. The second disappointment comes from Stanley Tucci. This is the kind of role that the Best Supporting Actor Oscar was made for. I have no idea why Tucci decided to portray George Harvey as a ridiculous, bumbling idiot. There's a scene in the film that had a lot of potential to be very suspenseful. The scene is well-showcased in the trailer: Susie's sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) breaks into the killer's house to try to find evidence that it was indeed him who killed her sister. It's beyond me why Tucci decides to have this gruff look on his face during this scene that renders him silly rather than menacing (there's also an ill-advised shot in which it seems that Tucci himself is carrying the camera as he runs around the house). George Harvey should be the opposite of your conventional movie villain, but that's exactly what we get here.

THE LOVELY BONES is a colossal misfire. There are those who will argue that certain novels are "unfilmable," and that's something I strongly disagree with. A piece of literature may be HARD to turn into cinema, but if that's the case, all you need to do is make certain modifications that will make for a smooth transition to the screen. It might piss off people who loved the source material, but it's the responsible thing to do in order to make a film adaptation that can stand on its own. That's exactly what Jackson accomplished with LOTR, and the result was a staggering masterpiece. I'll never understand how he came up with this dud. And actually, even if there ARE novels out there that could be "unfilmable," THE LOVELY BONES is certainly not one of them. All this film had to do was establish a better balance between the scenes in the physical world and the scenes in the afterlife. How could anyone think that plot and character development should be sacrificed for images of a heaven that was, quite frankly, pretty dull and unimpressive (not really the place I'd want to go to when I die)? Oh, and the other thing the film needed to do was be rated R. I'd hate to find out that the sole reason why some of the novel's most emotionally searing moments were eschewed from the script was simply out of a desire for better box office results. And if it was, then that's further proof that money corrupts; in this case, it corrupted a wonderful story by turning it into a shockingly underwhelming, at times even aggravating, piece of filmmaking.

wow! what a great, intense movie; but also sad.

"I wasn't lost, or frozen, or gone... I was alive; I was alive in my own perfect world."

Peter Jackson's work on the highly acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy propelled the Kiwi director to fame faster than he could say "My precious", and he followed up the series with the underrated period epic King Kong. After four consecutive features that represented a breakthrough in special effects and served as the very definition of "epic spectacle", Jackson opted for something more low-key for his next project: an adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones. To be sure, The Lovely Bones denotes a departure of sorts after Jackson's prior epics, yet at the same time this picture remains true to his talent for affording a grand, visually striking feel to a film which is intermixed with deeper undertones. While the film is indeed an impressive effort, this is still the most disappointing of the director's literary adaptations, as the translation from page to screen has yielded mixed results. Maybe there is some truth to the assertion that the novel is unfilmable, because if Peter Jackson is unable to do it properly, who can?

The narrator of the story, 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Ronan), opens the movie by explaining that she was murdered in 1973 by George Harvey (Tucci), who resides in her Pennsylvania neighbourhood. Since there is no mystery as to who murdered Susie (she reveals who he is via narration), the story of The Lovely Bones is not a murder mystery. Instead, the film follows Susie as she finds herself in the "in-between" world between heaven and earth where she can watch over a world she is not ready to let go of. From here, Susie is able to keep a watchful eye on her family, friends and murderer as she attempts to communicate to the living about where her remains lie and about the identity of the man who killed her.

Despite the simplicity of the storyline, Jackson (who co-wrote the screenplay with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) extended the film to over two hours, resulting in patches of sluggish pacing. The main problem is that the segues between Susie in her "in-between" world and Susie's family back on earth are not entirely successful. With an inordinate amount of time devoted to Susie, the story of her family is not told in full, resulting in short-cuts and instances of poorly motivated, contrived character action. For instance, the scene in which Jack (Wahlberg) realises that Harvey is the killer was handled poorly, as his leap of logic is unreasonable given the lack of evidence. Additionally, the need to compress bits and pieces of the book into the film has resulted in incomplete character arcs, and the ending (although representative of what happens in the book) is unsatisfying. Added to this, the handling of the timeframe is baffling. What feels like a few weeks is revealed to be 11 months. Crucially, Lindsey (McIver) is established as Susie's younger sister, and would therefore be 14 or 15 by the film's end, yet the last time she's seen in the movie she's about to tie the knot with a boy and is pregnant. Does this seem wrong to anyone else?

On a positive note, Peter Jackson afforded The Lovely Bones with a suitably mystical, ethereal and dreamlike feeling that reinforces the story's themes as well as the contrast of light and dark which is so prominent in the movie. Jackson is also competent in his ability to generate nail-biting suspense and drama. Principally, despite the foreknowledge that Susie will be killed, it's possible for a viewer to forget the pending tragedy as the little girl becomes absorbed in her photography and dreams of having a relationship. Also nail-biting are the scenes between Harvey and Lindsey, when it's difficult to look away from the screen. The computer-generated imagery used to bring to life Susie's "in-between" world are at times less than convincing, however, and Jackson's portrayal of the afterlife is disappointing. The view of heaven is a tad vacuous rather than magical. One more somewhat fatal misstep is the overuse of flashbacks, as certain scenes are replayed over and over and over again. Come on, we get it!

On the other hand, the majority of the actors submitted top-flight performances and inhabited their roles with tremendous conviction. The best performance in the film is courtesy of Stanley Tucci, who was nominated for an Oscar for his frightening, absolutely riveting portrayal of George Harvey. At the centre of The Lovely Bones is Saoirse Ronan's angelic performance as Susie Salmon. With her sharp, searching eyes and an intensity which was used to great effect in 2007's Atonement, Ronan steals the film whenever she appears on screen. While her narration is overused, her voice is pleasant and soothing to listen to. Mark Wahlberg, however (who was chosen at the last minute after Ryan Gosling dropped out), is strictly ordinary as Susie's father Jack, as he appears to simply breathe every word he says (not unlike The Happening). Meanwhile, Susan Sarandon is suitably hammy as Susie's grandmother, Michael Imperioli is effective as the police officer trying to solve Susie's murder, and Rachel Weisz is believable as the mother of the family. Rose McIver is another standout as Lindsey - she's a promising, endearing young actress.

Another factor of note is that The Lovely Bones is a PG-13 production, but the subject matter is better suited for mature audiences and should have thus been R-rated. Consequently, no mention is made of sexual assault (in the book Susie was raped by Mr. Harvey) and the violence occurs off-screen, which detracts a certain punch. In final analysis, though, The Lovely Bones has more going for it than not, and it will divide audiences.

7.3/10

I was very dissapointed in this movie. I thought the performances were good, and the story was excellent, but all that CGI that they used, pretty much bored me to death. The scenes defiantly went along with the movie, but it got to the point where I was being bored, and it takes a lot to bore me. I did like Mark Walhberg in this, its nice to see that he is getting back to his good acting, unlike The Happening, where he was terrible. So my overall on this movie was, it would have been better without some of the CGI scenes, it was way overdone.

The Lovely Bones”, de Alice Sebold, é um aclamado romance centrado no assassinato de uma jovem de 14 anos que acompanha as conseqüências de sua morte através do limbo no qual se encontra, acompanha o isolamento de seu pai, sua mãe abandonando a família e a investigação do crime sendo encerrada sem sucesso.
A jovem Susie também assiste a outros assassinatos de seu executor impune assim como a infância traumática que teve e chega mesmo relutante a ter pena dele; mas isso não é mostrado na adaptação de Peter Jackson para os cinemas, da mesma forma que não há menção ao estupro, ao adultério de sua mãe com o investigador ou o cotovelo de Susie encontrado no milharal onde foi esquartejada.

Na versão light de Peter Jackson predomina sua obsessão com efeitos especiais e sua interfaces computadorizadas nas ricas paisagens do limbo pós-morte, algumas realmente belas, como a transposição do momento em que seu pai quebra garrafas com navios dentro, elas aparecem em tamanho real atracando na praia do limbo. Outras cenas em que Susie e sua nova companhia, Holly, outra vítima de Harvey, brincam pelos diversos oníricos cenários e sobem morros verdejantes parece mais uma versão adolescente de teletubbies, não cativam.

Com exceção de “Almas Gêmeas”(1994), não tenho nenhuma empatia pelos filmes de Jackson, mas o trailer de The Lovely Bones era promissor, todavia uma trama em que Susie se corresponde com seus familiares e os conduz a seu assassino não procede, sua (falta de)comunicação é apenas sentida como uma presença, e o único momento em que ‘se materializa’ é para ter o primeiro beijo que nunca teve (em vida). Oh.

Mesmo sem dicas do além, o solitário e esquisito vizinho atrai suspeitas do pai e da irmã mais nova, mas não concretizam na prisão do mesmo, que é mostrado no final caindo de um penhasco num acidente. Stanley Tucci no papel do assassino concorre a melhor coadjuvante no Oscar, mas Harvey beira o clichê. O resto do elenco é desperdiçado Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, só há algum espaço para Susan Sarandon, entre um trago e um gole, cuidar dos netos na ausência da mãe.

“Um olhar do Paraíso” é na verdade apenas “O olhar do paraíso”, nada mais. Ao suavizar por completo as menções e detalhes mais obscuros da estória, Peter Jackson não apenas abaixou a classificação indicativa como o configurou como um excelente filme para crianças, tratando de forma zen o tema da morte, configurando um paraíso como um bolo confeitado e alerta aos perigos em aceitar convite de estranhos para visitar instalações subterrâneas.

''I wasn't lost, or frozen, or gone... I was alive; I was alive in my own perfect world.''

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

Saoirse Ronan: Susie Salmon

Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's story The Lovely Bones is another showcase for his talents of merging together great storytelling with magical special effects. The film is a complete blend of the real and the fantastical similarly styled to his film adapt of the real life inspired Heavenly Creatures. The mixed reviews and wallowing box office is probably due to the depressing underlying themes and also because this is a film adaptation of the book; There is certainly alot missing in the film from the source material.



However, why did I still love The Lovely Bones? Well first of all it's seemingly dark subject matter involving a murder is actually a story about coping with death, spirituality, a belief in the afterlife, karma, and redemption.
Saoirse Ronan follows through on the great potential she showed in her Academy Award-nominated performance in Atonement; She absolutely bombards the screen in The Lovely Bones with a rainbow of emotion and I cannot imagine this film being made without her ethereal beauty and soulful melody. Stanley Tucci is restrained, nearly unrecognisable, and ruthlessly effective as Mr. Harvey the serial killer. His performance is commendable and his Oscar nod shows appreciation for a dark, twisted effort which lingers.
The photography by Andrew Lesnie breathtaking in scope and in terms of cinematography. The lighting and angles used are gorgeous throughout the film.

''You're the Salmon girl, right?''

It should also be said that The Lovely Bones shows Peter Jackson can edit his films superbly so they run smoothly.
Jackson films close up shots with a realistic magnified beauty to them. The part where Mr Harvey is chasing the Susie's sister is majestically tense while clever shots are used and shaky close ups of face to emphasis fear.
Even the parts where Mr Harvey toys with a tiny house from a bracelet is wonderfully captured in a uniquely filmed way.
It must also be said that Mark Wahlberg collecting photographs Peter Jackson cameos as a random bystander testing a filmic camera. Little touches of these made me feel nostalgia reminiscent of a Hitchcock piece.

Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz turn out good performances yet nothing memorable or overly powerful.
Susan Sarandon's perpetually drunk grandmother's entry into the story is a flawed change in tone, but it is a plot necessity considering that the Salmon children's mother moves out and their father later is beaten near to death...the beating of Susie's father may seem a far-fetched plot twist but I think it is clearly meant to be a lesson in not taking an eye for an eye, instead letting fate settle the matter...instead of Mr. Harvey predictably being caught as he rolls the safe containing Susie into the sink hole, Peter Jackson sticks roughly to the books core. This isn't about revenge or someone unrealistically striking vengeance upon Mr Harvey. This is real life. His own personal clock serves as the judge, jury and executioner for his misdeeds and murders.

In conclusion, The Lovely Bones is a film that is amazing yet irritatingly misses important aspects of the book at times. Especially the later half of the film; Peter seems to race through the material forgetting the book's lengthy detailed meanderings.
On the whole I do feel that it is a haunting cinematic cerebral awakening told from the eyes and perspective of a teenage girl whom only wanted to experience her first kiss, her first love before being tragically murdered and further proof that Peter Jackson is one of the most visionary film-makers working today.

''You are beautiful, Susie Salmon.''