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FAITH & FILM: Lovely Bones falls short of heaven Bill Fentum, Feb 5, 2010
PARAMOUNT PICTURES PHOTO
In The Lovely Bones, Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) stars as teenage girl stranded between earth and heaven after falling victim to a serial killer.
By Bill Fentum Staff Writer
The Lovely Bones Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language
All of us feel the need, after the death of someone close, to know that person is at peace. Regardless of our religious beliefs, it’s unthinkable to imagine anything else.
But Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), heroine of The Lovely Bones, has unfinished business on earth. Murdered in 1973 by a serial killer, the 14-year-old sees her family in mourning and the crime still a mystery to detectives. Real closure hasn’t come yet—for them or for her.
It’s an odd premise, adapted from Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel by writer-director Peter Jackson with the same visual flair he brought to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sadly, his high-tech imagery is sometimes misplaced here, overwhelming a story that doesn’t need it.
We see Susie first as an energetic teen with a love for photography and nursing a big crush on a boy at school. The Salmons are mostly blessed; when kid brother Buckley survives a close call with death, in Susie’s words, they feel sure they’re “not among those people to whom bad things happen for no reason.”
That changes one afternoon in December, when Susie takes a shortcut through a barren, out-of-season cornfield on her way home from school. There she runs into reclusive neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who lures her into a secret “clubhouse” dug into the ground. Sensing danger, she fights her way out of the hole and escapes him.
Or so she thinks.
Susie soon realizes she’s dead—separated in a parallel universe from everything she knew before. Her attacker cut her throat and then hid her remains, and no one in her old world suspects him.
Rest assured the film is far less graphic than the book, where the girl is also raped. Mr. Jackson shows only glimpses of the gory aftermath, conveying the horror without exploitation.
Too bad his depiction of the afterlife isn’t nearly as subtle. Susie now dwells in the “in-between,” a place between earth and heaven where she meets perky new friend Holly (Nikki SooHoo) amid pure blue skies, wide green hills and waterfalls.
It’s not purgatory, just a bright wonderland that feels like Oz with no Munchkins. Overkill, indeed.
The place is also haunted by traces of Susie’s past. When her grief-stricken father Jack (Mark Wahlberg) smashes the bottled ships he once built as a hobby, giant replicas of the bottles rock around in the “in-between,” signs of mortal pain and Susie’s own lingering desire for retribution.
A year later, the Salmon household isn’t recovering. Jack, frustrated that the police got nowhere, is obsessed with finding the killer himself. His wife, Abigail (Rachel Weisz), has left Susie’s room untouched—“a tomb in the middle of the house,” says Grandma (Susan Sarandon).
Then something leads their attention to George Harvey. Susie’s sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) uncovers evidence after sneaking into his house in a sequence of nail-biting intensity.
And for her part, Susie discovers she was only the most recent victim: Others have abandoned the “in-between” for heaven, perhaps leaving justice in the hands of a higher power.
That’s pretty much the point of this story, one that hints at the presence of a deity who comforts us without intervening in our struggles. Mr. Jackson caved in slightly before the film’s release, adding a punishment of sorts for one character. But he still leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
As Susie, young Saoirse Ronan proves her performance in 2007’s Atonement was no fluke: her blue eyes express hope, fear and a longing for dreams left unfulfilled. Most others in the cast shine as well—though the script leaves Ms. Sarandon with an underdeveloped role, even forcing her into a few scenes of half-hearted comic relief.
Flaws like that—and a garishly big-scale afterlife that probably cost half the film’s budget—leave it finally stranded. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s not a total bust.
In short, The Lovely Bones exists in its own “in-between.”
PARAMOUNT PICTURES PHOTO
Or so she thinks. 
