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“Murder changes everything,” says the film’s main character Susie Salmon, played by Saoirse Ronan. Unfortunately, even murder could not make “The Lovely Bones” anything but a hit-and-miss affair. While not a terrible movie, it was not a great one either.
The movie is based on a book of the same title. The plot revolves around a young girl who was murdered early on in the movie. The rest of the time is spent following her through heaven as she watches her father and sister try to discover the identity of her killer.
The quality of this movie varies drastically from scene to scene. Some were fantastic and others were the definition of boring. The last two scenes are a particularly strong example of this. The first was amazing: unfortunately the following scene brought it back to the land of mediocrity.
Yes, the film has some cool visuals, but what else would you expect from the director who brought you “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “King Kong”? And yet, even those scenes were not consistently entertaining. In fact, the film had only three constants. The first was that Susan Sarandon’s character was highly annoying. Second, Mark Wahlberg was, as usual, just a step above a pro wrestler in the acting department. Finally, on a more positive note, the film found a consistent bright spot with Stanley Tucci's portrayal of antagonist George Harvey.
Harvey is a manipulator, schemer and predator; his creepiness could possibly rank up there with the likes of Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter. The laborious, thoughtful manner in which he sketches and builds his traps, the natural way in which he lures his victims to their doom, and finally, the way he relishes the acts he committs all attribute to this fact. All those things lent to his star turn as the poster child for real world evil. I am not sure what is more disturbing; the fact that Tucci’s character is monster that can live down the street from anybody or that he was able to portray a child murderer so convincingly. Regardless, Tucci stole every scene in which he was featured.
Lastly, the movie’s star, Ronan, seen in 2007’s “Atonement”, is a promising young actress. Hopefully, we will see her in the near future in a role that allows her talent to shine. Sadly, in this movie, that was not the case.
Overall, “The Lovely Bones” does not live up to the talent involved or the time spent in preparation, for a film whose principal photography began in 2007. This film should not necessarily be avoided; however it could have been better and there are plenty of other movies out there more worthy of your spare time and money.
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