I was really looking forward to this one. So much so that I did things I normally don't do to convince myself that this movie was going to be amazing. I read the book, I ignored scathing reviews, I even became upset upon learning that it was going to be bumped from its original release date, and was changing its marketing strategy to appeal to teenage girls. There was still no way Peter Jackson was going to let me down. It turns out that his cinematic vision of The Lovely Bones made my skin crawl.
The path to my disappointment began a few years ago. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold was already a huge bestseller, and I had never even heard of it. I read an entertainment news article declaring that Peter Jackson's next film was going to be an adaptation of this novel. I am a massive fan Mr. Jackson's diverse work, whether he makes overly energetic low budget gore-fests like Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive, or epic multi-million dollar masterpieces The Lord of the Rings and King Kong. The man can make one hell of a movie. I even throughly enjoy his mid level work like The Frighteners. I went out and bought the book and read it in a few days. To the book's credit it reads really well, but I found it immensely overrated.
The plot of the book and the film involves a fourteen year old girl named Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan). Growing up in 1973 is a little hard for Susie, but that is nothing compared to her demise. One day she is stalked, raped, and murdered by the neighborhood pedophile Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci). Susie's soul is transported into a beautiful purgatory where she witnesses the slow and painful disintegration of her family who just can't manage to handle the loss.
The first negative aspect that just jumped out at me is how creepy and uncomfortable the whole project is. The scene where Harvey is bathing away the blood and dirt from his latest conquest is about as revolting and over the top as a non-restricted movie could be. However, it is not just the ugly scenes, but the depiction of heaven I found equally disturbing. Susie's heaven is filled with the stereotypical landscapes, but they looked to me like semi-shoddy green screen effects. There are also a few moments where Susie disco dances in platforms while imagining she is a magazine cover model. It is pretty embarrassing.
Every single actor in this film performs their role as a walking cliche. Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz play the grieving parents. He attempts a beyond-obsessed search for his daughter's killer that even leads to him naming an eighty year old neighbor as a possible suspect, and Weisz just flat out ditches her family when things get too hard to deal with. This leads to the film's one near saving grace in the character of Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon) She provides great comic relief as the hard drinking and smoking support that is unafraid to tell it like it is. Unfortunately she is in the film for only roughly five minutes, and is quite possibly the biggest cliche of all.
There is a right way and a wrong way to handle this kind of material. Todd Field's marvelous In the Bedroom might be the best example I can give to explain how to make a film with such a topic work. That film also involves the different phases of grief a husband and wife must go through after the loss of a child. They spend most of their time grieving in different ways, but rest assured every cold stare, awkward silence, or violent act is undeniably earned. That film is a masterpiece. Ordinary People would be another solid example.
The Lovely Bones is such an unfortunate misfire. The entire film is consistently either one of these three things: disturbing, schmaltzy, or depressing. Take your pick. Although numerous scenes take place in the afterlife, I can promise you that The Lovely Bones is certainly no heavenly creature. D
3 comments:
You're not alone. A bunch of reviewers have it on their "worst of 2009" lists: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/vultures_critics_poll_the_comp_1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+nymag/vulture+(Vulture+-+nymag.com's+Entertainment+and+Culture+Blog)&utm_content=Bloglines
I read the book a long time ago, and I only understand what the hoopla is in a sort of Oprah's Book Club kind of way. It's a beach read. It's not very good as literature goes, or even by popular novel standards, but it's better than a romance novel.
I had a problem with the strange disconnect with how realistic the murder/rape stuff is and how Alice in Wonderland the limbo stuff is. Ebert had a point in his review when he said it made it seem all right that she was murdered because now she gets to frolic through the fields and have all this fun.
I heard an interview with Alice Sebold, and it seems The Lovely Bones was as much as a cathartic exercise for her as literary effort. She had been assaulted in college (if I remember correctly) and kind of wrote this and her memoir in parallel. I haven't read either, but I think that might impart the "beach read" sense (though what kind of twisted people read about a 14 y/o getting raped and murdered when they're on vacation!).
As for the movie, I was hesitant from the first previews about the take Jackson decided to go with.
However, I absolutely agree that "In The Bedroom" is a fantastic work, really kind of underrated these days but I think it will stand the test of time.
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