The Lovely Bones…REVIEWED WITH SPECIAL SAUCE!!! SPOILERS!!!
After a couple of WordPress crashes (a world of GRRRR) I’ve decided to post from the old faithful blogger instead.
After a long wait, The Lovely Bones finally arrived to the Granada in downtown La Grande. Angels sung out in chorus and devils danced a gig. All was right with the world and my girlfriend and I took it in immediately.
After having seen it, I realized one thing…I was glad I didn’t read the book.
Simmer down now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to read the book. Point of fact, I’m actually going to borrow it from my gf just as soon as my schedule opens up so I can see what the source material was like.
RANDOM TANGENT! Adaptation. Source material. I’ll get to that at the end, for now, on to the QuikSyn!
QuikSyn: Susie Salmon is the simple, cheerful, wicked cool-on the verge of her first kiss-type of girl who has a serious zest for life. She’s good natured, loving and trusting to a fault when one day, after a walk home from school…she disappears. In a time when children disappearing may or may not have been treated with the same seriousness as it is today, a half-hearted search effort by the police turns up no leads. Meanwhile, beyond the world of the living, Susie finds her self in the in between; a place between heaven and earth where she fights to stay. Her father, determined to find her, continues his search which leads him to his neighbor George Harvey, an eerie and lonely man who killed Susie and has killed before. Meanwhile, Susie’s sister Lindsey, takes up the reigns of her fathers investigation to find the proof of who Mr. Harvey really is and what happened to Susie Salmon.
Generally, this film kept me rooted in my seat the whole time. I never found myself checking the time or wondering if the concessions were still open. I actually, very much, enjoyed being at the film.
The In Between is not all puppies and popcorn
I felt like the visuals were stunning, not breaking down barriers but beautiful in both their lightness and their dark. There were moments that stayed with you, like Susie’s realization as she walked through time, seeing her killer bathe in the tub…almost relaxing after a hard day’s work. Bathed in white light, with only splashes of red to disrupt the serenity of what you start off thinking is a safe place to be in.
I enjoyed the story and really connected with the Susie Salmon (SAOIRSE RONAN). There were times I could feel myself pulling at the fabric of space/time to help her return to her family. Saoirse Ronana does an excellent job of playing, well, a young teen but she isn’t without her merits. It’s not that she played a teen but brought a real character to life. If you look at her impressive body of work thus far, City of Ember & Atonement, you realize that the girl has some skill and will hopefully become one of the new leading women in the film industry.
Mark Wahlberg redeems himself as an actor, a little bit, in his performance as Jack Salmon. It is probably one of his better performances since I Heart Huckabees…but not better than that. He still seems to make weird choices that take you out of his performances but when he’s rooted in the pain of losing his daughter and the return of his wife, he’s believable, I’ll say that.
The Happpening….shudder Mark Wahlberg. Shudder.
Okay, now…what failed.
I really enjoyed the moment where Susie steals the body of Ruth (CAROLYN DANDO) but it left me kind of confused. If she had this ability, why not use it earlier to say, I don’t know, expose her killer? Big plot hole here that took a leap of faith to follow and only my enjoyment of Saoirse’s performance kept me from uttering a very vocal “HUH?!”
Tucci’s performance, although quite good, had my creep radar going off the moment he stepped on screen. There is no amount of money, promises of candy, a fun playhouse or anything that would have convinced me that 
walking off with him was a good idea. The creep went a little far and is better suited when we’re alone with him. We’re getting to see him behind closed doors and that’s when he should feel creepy. I just felt like we should want to understand why Susie could have made a mistake and walked off with him and I just didn’t feel that way. Sorry Peter.
Okay, about what I said earlier. Set the scene: I didn’t read the book. Done.
I’ve mentioned it in other reviews on my feelings about comparing books with their adapted film counterpart and I’ll say it again. Best advice, don’t do it. My logic is pretty simply formulated: Books and films deliver their similar messages in completely different ways. I admire the cries of the diehard fan or “fanboy” or “fanboyette” as I refer to them. You know the type, if everything is not as it is in the book or not how they envisioned in their heads, it’s a travesty and the world has failed them. There seems to be a difficulty in these individuals to separate reality from fiction. To separate from the idea that a book can be completely adapted to the screen, word for word. It can’t. Books have the luxury of time that movies can not afford. I don’t think anyone would sit and watch a seven hour movie about The Lovely Bones.
Again, I have not read the book but this film is directed by one of those directors who believes in being as faithful to the source material as possible. I could be wrong, but not likely.
Overall, I really enjoyed the film and would highly recommend you catch it when you can. It’s worth the watch. I was sad to see it go after barely a week but Alvin & the Crapmunks were here for a month. RAGE! (No, I didn’t see the Crapmunks, but when Jason Lee won’t return for the sequel? Really?)
4 out of 5 Stars.
Next up, I have a big surprise screener from a local Director! EXCITEMENT! After that look for either Dear John, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or Valentine’s Day!
Fish and Chips,
Chuck
poster image sourced from: http://pacejmiller.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/the-lovely-bones-poster.jpg
second image sourced from: http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/TheLovelyBones.jpg
Tucci image sourced from: http://photogallery.filmofilia.com/data/media/116/the_lovely_bones_13.jpg
originally posted at http://purethoughtfilms.blogspot.com/
I really want to hear back from you after you’ve read the book. I understand what you mean about not comparing book to movie, but it is a natural occurrance. And there must be some issue if the book was a national bestseller and the movie did not do well at the box-office…something didn’t “adapt” in quite the right way (unlike, say the Harry Potter phenom). And I saw Dear John this weekend, and then, and only then, after looking on-line and seeing a book jacket cover, did I even recall I had read the book. I don’t even know how they compared.
And in this book, as you will find, it had to be a mighty tough task to make a movie from it when the book was largely Susie’s narration. For ME, the focus of the book was an an interesting view of Heaven…way different than any have yet imagined and the movie gave us LSD visuals with none of the content that Heaven had for Susie. And I felt the book was about her process of separation from earth to afterlife, and her need to assist in exposing her murderer. I felt the movie went too far in making it with heavier emphasis on the creep factor (in the book she dies in the first 15 pages), and on a study of creep-man. So please write again when you read it…I wanna know what you think. I’m really curious.
And good or bad, movies follow the money. If people aren’t viewing it, it doesn’t stay. I will probably rent the crapmonks eventually and I do support that with little to do in a small town and not that many G-rated movies being made for small kids, keeping it here doesn’t seem unwarrented. I’m not sure of the dynamics but it used to be that deals had to be struck about which movies to keep how long in order to even get your hands on a blockbuster early in the game (I remember La Grande always being LAST to get any blockbusters…we were low on the priority list), so they have improved in as much as the movies get to our neck of the woods pretty quickly.
Thanks Cherie.
I’m excited to read the book. I’m looking forward to it.
I don’t believe books being compared to movies is as much a natural occurrence as it is one that is bred into us. We believe that everything is a competition and there is only one right, and one wrong instead of there being a multitude of possibilities. When I read a book and see a film, their approach, execution and delivery are so vastly different in how they reach the senses that I fail to understand any logic in comparing them and has yet to be proven to me it can. A book cradles you up, wrapping its story around you in slow and intricate webs that take hours to build. A movie, although pulling off subtlety, has be a little more up front and shows you the dinner rather than letting you imagine it for yourself. The difference is drastic and obvious so I still fail to see the logic in comparing. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, it just means when you do so, you’re one is limiting themselves.
I often find myself crying for a greater selection of movies, to be fast and forthcoming, at our beloved Granada. I too cry when some movies, hang too long past their death but sometimes it can’t be helped. I enjoyed what you said about how good and bad it all follows the money because it’s true and that’s why you can’t always garner popularity as a form of success. The Chipmunk squeakwel holds a review on imdb.com of 3.3 out of 10 and Dear John holds a commanding 5.3 out of 10, both failing in comparison to The Lovely Bones 6.8. Now, these are just numbers. You can’t argue with money…these films are popular. They just aren’t very good at all and in fact could quite possibly be considered worse than The Lovely Bones.
We need a fair share of films to keep people interested, to give people something to do and it’s clear by The Chipmunks 212 million dollar gross that my earlier statement rings true: It doesn’t have to be good to make money. People need something to take their children too and the Chipmunk movie was the only option. Tear. I think where The Lovely Bones stalls out is that it’s not quite so cut and dried simple to understand. It’s message is tougher and a little bristly to those who have different views on the afterlife.
I feel like the film still succeeds on processing Susie’s separation and the aiding in finding her killer but, due to the lack of time a movie can have, it’s very condensed. Having not read the book, I’m not sure on that but I know as the films stands as it is, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thanks for the response, talk again soon.