For Reel

Director: Peter Jackson

“The Lovely Bones” is a rather appalling movie, one so off-putting that those who haven’t read the novel will immediately question the well-being of the millions of Americans who have. It’s a cute, sentimental drama about the brutal murder of a fourteen year old girl. She, lingering in a beautiful purgatory, aids her family and friends in the moving-on process. Who knew being raped and murdered would be so grand – you get to party with fellow teenagers in your own wonderland, and even your family and friends will have the opportunity to grow closer together in your absence.

The film is directed by Peter Jackson, who just had as good of a decade as anyone in Hollywood. “King Kong” seemed to answer the questions as to whether or not he would excel beyond Middle Earth, but “The Lovely Bones” is pure derailment – giving Jackson a harsh notice that perhaps he should stick to the action blockbusters. He doesn’t seem capable of reverting back to “Heavenly Creatures” after experiencing the pleasures of spending hundreds of millions on armies of orcs and stampeding dinosaurs.

Our narrator, Susie Salmon (Saorise Ronan), shares that she was murdered at the age of fourteen on December 6th, 1973. Since then, she’s been trapped in “the in-between”, a technicolor playground of improbably blue skies and lush fields. Meanwhile, her killer, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), is developing the itch to take another victim, and Susie must do what she can from beyond the grave to help her father (Mark Wahlberg) find the one responsible.

The film’s a mess. Tonally, it’s disastrous – leaping from the most gruesome of thrillers to fluffy Lifetime sentimentality minute-by-minute. A few of the supporting characters, particularly those played the criminally underutilized Rachel Weisz and Susan Sarandon, are laughably superfluous. Even moreso wasteful is Jackson’s fascination with the “in-between” itself – large stretches of time are spent roaming this dreamland, nearly confusing the audience into thinking that Susie is better off dead.

The biggest problem is that, by focusing so heavily on the murderer, the film becomes one of vengeance – the film begins with a murder and the rest is a quest for blood. The police procedural aspects, completely adrift amongst the film’s excesses elsewhere, overshadow the idea of reconciliation. Although I am one of the few who has not read the book, my understanding is that Sebold was illustrating the connections that grow from tragedy, the companionship that allows us to dig ourselves out of the deepest, darkest holes. This is a film about serial killer whose victims get to play in a charming, carefree playground.