Peter Jackson's film, 'The Lovely Bones' is being touted around as being up for Oscar consideration. 'Fraid it doesn't rate that well in my estimation. it has a couple of glaring flaws, the most annoying ones being the narration (radio with pictures), a music score that does nothing for the narrative, some very 'out of kilter' scenes that pop up for no reason and some very odd casting. The animation, also, is somewhat klunky.
Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz are cast as the parents of a deep-thinking, pubescent girl, her younger sister and brother in a 1970s house that allows Marie Mark to wear his fine mullett and flares. Rachel is by far too pretty for the part and Mark looks kind of kerflummoxed throughout. Stanley Tucci, however, is just grand in his portrayal of a serial killer and his presence on the screen each time sends chills down viewers' spines.
Saoirse Ronan plays the central part, a young girl murdered by a serial killer. We see the story through her (dead) eyes which is often blown out for no apparent reason with musical montages and interludes of heaven and purgatory.
The screenplay is quite clumsy and there is no real view of character outside that of Mr. Harvey, (Tucci) and somehow, the film took me back in design to Jackson's breakout film, 'Heaveanly Creatures' 1994. By far the best scene was with the sister, Lindsey, conducting her own detective work and had the film contained more of these suspenseful moments it would have been less of a trial to watch.
Adaptations are always difficult but this one seems to have only contained enough material for a short film and I had the feeling that it was padded out to movie length with pointless straying into Elysian fields.
If you see only one film a month, don't choose this one. If you are a writer, however, watch it on DVD when it is released near you and try to figure out how you would approach a rewrite! At least then you won't have wasted your time watching the film.
