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THE LOVELY BONES
Another of those movies that offers more questions than answers and flash over substance, 2009's The Lovely Bones is a disturbing and stomach churning drama about a tragic murder and how it affects everyone involved...especially the victim.
Susie Salmon is a 14 year old girl from a happy home with a younger brother and sister, parents who adore her, and has finally caught the eye of the boy at school she's been crushing on from a distance. On the way home from the mall one day, Susie runs into a neighbor named George Harvey, who lures Susie into a trap and when Susie won't do what George wants, she tries to escape and it initially appears that she does, but she didn't...only her soul escaped. We then learn that Susie is trapped in some sort of mystical Purgatory where she is torn between longing for justice regarding her murder and watching her family try to move on.
This is a really interesting idea, looking at a murder from the victim's POV; unfortunately, I wish the screenplay had committed a little more fully to the concept and allowed Susie a little more control of her situation. We are given hope when a connection is firmly established between Susie and her father (Mark Wahlberg) through some spooky visual trappings and we wonder if Susie is going to be able to lead her father to her killer, but the exact opposite happens...as the investigation into Susie's death progresses, George is nowhere near the vicinity of the suspect list. There is a completely aggravating scene that takes place 11 months after the murder where the father suggests to the lead detective (Michael Imperioli) that they start thinking outside the box and offers him a list of people he should look at as suspects and George isn't on the list. This movie angers as it appears that George is going to get away with this.
I liked the idea of seeing a victim unable to go to her final rest because of the way that she died, but the screenplay by Fran Walsh, Phillipia Boynes, and director Peter Jackson, based on a novel by Alice Sebold, never really gives Susie the direct power to affect her family's grief or the pursuit of her killer, so what's the point? That's where this movie missteps for me.
Still, Peter Jackson's direction is imaginative and he gets some first rate performances from Wahlberg, Oscar winner Rachel Weicz as Susie's mother, an eye opening turn from Saoirse Ronan as Susie and especially Stanley Tucci, brilliantly unapologetic as George Harvey in a performance that earned him an Oscar nomination. The story is a really good idea that doesn't fully commit, but this is another one of those movies, like Gone, Baby, Gone, that will make you want to grab your kids and never let go.
Another of those movies that offers more questions than answers and flash over substance, 2009's The Lovely Bones is a disturbing and stomach churning drama about a tragic murder and how it affects everyone involved...especially the victim.
Susie Salmon is a 14 year old girl from a happy home with a younger brother and sister, parents who adore her, and has finally caught the eye of the boy at school she's been crushing on from a distance. On the way home from the mall one day, Susie runs into a neighbor named George Harvey, who lures Susie into a trap and when Susie won't do what George wants, she tries to escape and it initially appears that she does, but she didn't...only her soul escaped. We then learn that Susie is trapped in some sort of mystical Purgatory where she is torn between longing for justice regarding her murder and watching her family try to move on.
This is a really interesting idea, looking at a murder from the victim's POV; unfortunately, I wish the screenplay had committed a little more fully to the concept and allowed Susie a little more control of her situation. We are given hope when a connection is firmly established between Susie and her father (Mark Wahlberg) through some spooky visual trappings and we wonder if Susie is going to be able to lead her father to her killer, but the exact opposite happens...as the investigation into Susie's death progresses, George is nowhere near the vicinity of the suspect list. There is a completely aggravating scene that takes place 11 months after the murder where the father suggests to the lead detective (Michael Imperioli) that they start thinking outside the box and offers him a list of people he should look at as suspects and George isn't on the list. This movie angers as it appears that George is going to get away with this.
I liked the idea of seeing a victim unable to go to her final rest because of the way that she died, but the screenplay by Fran Walsh, Phillipia Boynes, and director Peter Jackson, based on a novel by Alice Sebold, never really gives Susie the direct power to affect her family's grief or the pursuit of her killer, so what's the point? That's where this movie missteps for me.
Still, Peter Jackson's direction is imaginative and he gets some first rate performances from Wahlberg, Oscar winner Rachel Weicz as Susie's mother, an eye opening turn from Saoirse Ronan as Susie and especially Stanley Tucci, brilliantly unapologetic as George Harvey in a performance that earned him an Oscar nomination. The story is a really good idea that doesn't fully commit, but this is another one of those movies, like Gone, Baby, Gone, that will make you want to grab your kids and never let go.