February 2010
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The Lovely Bones (12a)
Posted 15th February 2010

The second month of the New Year sees the second big modern classic book adaptation of the year (after the five-star The Road) already in Peter Jackson re-telling of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. What’s pleasing to report is that it’s now two-for-two in terms of interpreted quality.

For those few that didn’t read the tube favourite of 2003, The Lovely Bones is the emotional (after)life story of Susie Salmon (the ridiculously-talented for one so young Saoirse Ronan – Atonement), a popular teenage girl murdered one day on her way home from school. Watching her family from the afterlife, Susie witnesses their emotional ordeal and investigations into her death, whilst trying to come to terms with what heavenly-happenings lay in-wait for her.

Equally spending our time split-between the real world and Susie’s in-between, what obviously stands out the most in Bones is the creative visual direction. Very much a Peter Jackson Film®, in the real world it is full of his favoured kinetic-and-dramatic camera moves and some creative close-ups and augmented audio choices recognisable, and not-too-dissimilar, to much of his work in the LOTR films. Visually Susie’s own personal purgatory is surely everything you imagined and more from a man with more imagination in his hairy Hobbit’s feet than the rest of us have in our entire lovely bones. Beautiful and ethereal, if that’s really what awaits us on the other side then we can all take some comfort about what lies ahead after this earth-bound part of our personal story ends.

The performances of his well-assembled ensemble cast cannot be overlooked though either and this will be the area in which The Lovely Bones will surely feature strongest in the awards categories (as proven by the Oscars, BAFTAs, Globes and SAG award nominations). Saoirse Ronan is superb as Susie and undoubtedly deserves to be up for another Golden Baldie already (hmm... no, she got many other nominations though) so soon into a very promising career. This girl is scary-talented and her way with accents is something to be admired. She’d probably even give Christian Bale a run for his convincing talky. Pleasingly, last-minute replacement Mark Wahlberg is also impressive as Papa Salmon after a serious run of stinkers for him personally dating back three years, taking in four performances and film flops (Shooter, We Own The Night, The Happening and Max Payne) since being deservedly nommed himself for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

Best of the luvvie lot though is an unrecognisable under make-up and wig Stanley Tucci as the skeevie-supplying Mr. Harvey. Creepy in every which way, in any other year he’d be a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor for this performance but unfortunately this time around he’s gotta go up against Christoph Waltz’s frankly unassailable Basterd Col. Hans “Jew Hunter” Lander. Which is frankly an impossible foe to best. Sorry Stan, any other year the award would be yours but you’re just unlucky your personal peak has come at a time when no-one on the planet could conceivably compete.

The biggest and main criticism one can make of the movie, and the only thing I felt was lacking in the film from the book translation, is that everything is perhaps just a little too deliberate and measured and therefore slightly emotionally-distancing. To criticise a film for being too calculated perhaps might seem a little unfair (especially when you’re attempting to fit 256 dense pages into two-hours and fifteen-minutes), but when the picture you’re presenting should constantly stir the emotions, wringing out the tears from scene-to-scene-to-scene (as this really should in the real world sections) and it fails to do so, then there’s clearly something just a little bit off about proceedings. The only time I really found myself totally drawn in and chest-tighteningly involved is in a single scene where Wahlberg’s father figure breaks down when talking to his son. Other than that, it all seemed a little clinical when it should have been personal. Besides Jackson managed it before with a much more mammoth Middle-Earth task, so really shouldn’t be too offended by being called out on it here on this more recognisable Earthly-plane.

Of course this is a minor complaint against a greater whole and, perhaps, ill-conceived pre-conceptions of superlative greatness because, overall, what emerges from The Lovely Bones is yet another consummate Peter Jackson dramatic fantasy thriller. Besides, perhaps the traditional P.J. extended-edition on DVD will redress the under-exposed family histrionics and emotionality that this theatrical cut is lacking? We’ll all be buying the DVD to find out upon its release anyway...

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