People love fiction novels for any number of reasons. Some appreciate the way in which the author uses his or her words and how they transport the reader into a specific world. Others simply enjoy the solitary entertainment experience -- even if they're in a crowded location, they sense they're the only one watching and seeing the story unfold.
Whether they consciously realize it in the moment of reading, however, most like reading books because it allows them to play director, at least in their heads. While the writer often describes the characters, settings and such -- sometimes in meticulous fashion -- the reader gets "final cut" on how they envision every included element.
All of which is why fans of novels are often disappointed in the movie adaptations of them. And that's not just because story elements and/or characters are added, deleted or just modified in some sense. Instead, it's that the movie director's vision simply didn't match or exceed their own.
That's certainly the case with "The Lovely Bones," writer/director Peter Jackson's and co-scribes Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens' adaptation of Alice Sebold's 2002 novel of the same name. In full disclosure, I never read the book, but have heard from readers of it that it was quite moving in terms of telling the tale of a girl who views that aftermath of her murder and its affect on those she knew, both intimately and remotely (the title stemming from the symbolism of her demise causing her family and friends to grow in new directions).
Based on the premise, I can certainly see how the story would obviously work quite well in literary form, combining the worldly results still on Earth and the girl's spirit moving through the afterlife, with the reader easily segueing between as well as mixing the two. Sadly, Jackson (best know for helming the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) isn't as successful on the screen.
Told in flashback -- we know from the get-go that the 14-year-old girl (a good Saoirse Ronan) has been murdered by her neighbor (a perfectly creepy and somewhat unrecognizable Stanley Tucci) -- the film splits its time between those two worlds. The earthbound material starts with Susie still alive, briefly presents her abduction and murder, and then focuses most of its time on the aftermath.
That's when her parents (played by Mark Wahlberg, again proving he needs the right director to get the best out of him and that doesn't occur here, despite the best of intentions, and Rachel Weisz, good but stymied by an underwritten character) must first contend with her disappearance. That's followed by the acceptance of her murder, and then the strain of the dad deciding to take the Chuck Bronson route (although most viewers will have long figured out the big potential clue that he and his wife are apparently too dim to recognize -- notwithstanding the script's lame reason for them not doing so).
That's all while the serial killer tries to keep a low profile despite the temptation of his next heinous act and the efforts of a detective (Michael Imperioli, who's decent, but unable to overcome genre conventions), the murdered girl's grandmother (Susan Sarandon, somewhat over the top, but written that way) shows up to help the survivors in her own unique way, and a fellow student (Reece Ritchie) laments what might have romantically been.
What's there moderately works for what it is, but we've seen this all before and neither the cast nor the filmmakers do enough with the material to make it stand out from the many predecessors (be that in the family grief and/or serial killer genres). It certainly doesn't help that one's emotional engagement with the characters -- beyond the default empathy reaction from parents and their "what if this happened to me" response -- is never as strong as it could and so obviously should have been.
Part of that stems from Jackson continuously alternating between the worldly and celestial settings. Granted, the basic plot is the murdered girl helplessly watching her family unravel in the wake of her murder, so she obviously needs to be seen. Yet, the fact that those two settings are handled differently from a style standpoint constantly undermines any sort of building dramatic momentum and/or emotional engagement.
Then again, I've never been a big fan of surreal representations of Heaven and/or any other stage of the afterlife (I'll take the simple clouds of "Heaven Can Wait" or the mostly business as usual viewpoint of "Defending Your Life" rather than the artsy-fartsy stylings of films such as "What Dreams May Come"). Considering that Jackson goes full-bore with the surrealistic imagery, employing lots of expensive looking visual graphics in the process, certainly didn't help my view of any of those scenes and thus the entire film.
All of which is too bad since it contains good to decent individual elements. Considering she has to spend much of her time in that surrealism, Ronan is quite good, and Tucci certainly creates a credible and creepy serial killer. And some moments, such as that involving a deep sinkhole used as something of an inverted landfill for discarded material and the potential repository of the girl's remains, are truly iconic in nature.
It's just unfortunate that they've ended up in an uneven cinematic version of Sebold's source novel. Without enough viewer emotional engagement to overcome the problems, the offering comes off as frustrating and, ultimately, quite boring. "The Lovely Bones" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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