"The Lovely Bones" - REVIEW

Contrary to general consensus, Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel, "The Lovely Bones", is not a disaster. What it is, is a disheveled, unfocused film with a good, perhaps even great film buried inside.
The film is the story of 14 year-old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan of Atonement), who is murdered one day on her way home from school. The murderer: neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). The problem: The only people who know about Harvey's role in Susie's murder are Susie herself, and the audience. Susie somewhat watches down and narrates the several years that follow her murder from a strange place between earth and heaven (such a place was not in the book; Susie merely narrated from some vague purgatory). It's here where the problems begin, and good lord there are problems. The in-between land where Susie spends most of the film, despite being occasionally mesmerizing, beautiful, and/or intense, often feels superfluous, even if it does give Ronan more to do than sit and narrate. It also introduces a small but irritating character named Holly, who I won't describe because seeing her in the film is painful enough (not the character herself, perse, but her dialogue and the actress who plays her). She's not the only one: Mark Wahlberg as Susie's father feels totally miscast (the original choice was Ryan Gosling) with his line delivery in too high a pitch and a distracting "look at me I'm acting" expression that calls to mind his performance in The Happening (for those who haven't seen that film, that is NOT a compliment). Susan Sarandon is fine as a boozing, smoking grandmother, but her character is mostly used to odd effect, particularly in a scene where she cleans (or tries to clean) the Salmon house while the parents are away (presented in one of the most bizarre, inappropriately jovial montages I've seen in a while). I understand the desire to inject a little levity into the otherwise dour and intense proceedings, but there's a limit. Rachel Weisz, as Susie's mother, gets stuck with a totally thankless role, as does Christian Ashdale as her spiritually "gifted" (?) little brother. Of the Salmon clan still among the living, only Rose Mclver, as Susie's sister Lindsey, gets anything of interest to do, and does a fine job with what she has (plot-forwarding table scraps). This brings us to the final two puzzle pieces: Ronan and Tucci. Much has been made of Tucci's role (he was the only part of the film to ever have strong pre-release buzz), and it could have been a masterful performance, but on the whole the role is characterized more by creepy shots and moody lighting/editing; Jackson's attempts at "showing" somehow come off more as "telling". Tucci does shine a little in the unbearably tense build up to Susie's murder, though again, much of it is also due to the lighting and editing. Ronan is in a slightly different boat. She gets plenty to do in her pseudo-heaven, but due to the rest of the film, bizarre tonal shifts and all, the performance feels like a promise of greatness, instead of actual greatness. She gets the emotions down, but thanks to the overabundance of visual effects wizardry feels distant.
That said, the film does have its small pleasures; enough to make me believe that had Jackson simply picked one tone and stuck with it, he could have had a brilliant film. Like I said, the build up to Susie's murder is really intense, as is a heaven sequence where she's wanders into a mysterious white bathroom, with Tucci lying naked in a bathtub like some monster waiting under a bridge (I was briefly reminded of the Pale Man sequence in Pan's Labyrinth). The visual effects for the most part are dazzling, like in a scene where Susie runs along a beach filled with ships crashing onto the shore. There's also Brian Eno's score...well, most of it. It's very atmospheric and at times haunting, mesmerizing even, but in a handful of scenes it wanders astray, like when Wahlberg is accidentally mistaken for someone else and attacked, the speakers suddenly pour out electric guitar music that is both ugly and distracting.
So where does that leave us at the end of the day? A really strange place, is where. Jackson knows how to command your attention, but what he gives us is too inconsistent, too scatterbrained, to fully resonate, in addition to doing a disservice to the actors involved. The film itself may be beautiful to look at, but at its core The Lovely Bones is really just a mess in need of a clearer vision.

Grade: C

"The Lovely Bones" clip: Obsession

New "The Lovely Bones" poster

Peter Jackson's film, which opens on December 11th, has over the past few weeks, found itself in a bit of trouble. It's one of the five BIG December movies (along with "Avatar", "Nine", "Invictus", and "Up in the Air"), and the early word from test screenings has been not quite as positive as hoped for. There have been good reviews (or rather, snippets), which is a relief, but the most recent one I read presented an interesting dilemma. The writer said that the film sometimes doesn't know what it wants to be: crime drama or tragedy. However, the writer also said that both aspects are executed strongly, but that it's simply, "odd to be crying one minute and then the next minute be sitting at the edge of your seat screaming for the girl to get out of a room." As far as official reviews go, I've only read those from The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Both give praise to Saoirse Ronan, citing her as the glue that holds the film together, but seem ultimately underwhelmed by the whole package.

Oscar Buzz (I kind of hate this term, but it gets the job done...) Up:
- Saoirse Ronan for Best Actress

Oscar Buzz Down:
- The Lovely Bones for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay

Audiences to Peter Jackson: "BE DEPRESSING!"

Source: Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Filmmakers trying to satisfy a U.S. movie rating aimed at mostly teenagers often complain that they're forced to cut violent scenes, and those edits compromise the director's vision.

But Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson found he had the exact opposite problem with his eagerly-anticipated new film, "The Lovely Bones," due in theaters on December 11.

Based on the 2002 best-seller by Alice Sebold, "The Lovely Bones" tells the harrowing and intensely emotional story of a raped and murdered 14-year-old girl named Susie (Saoirse Ronan), who watches from her heavenly vantage point while her family on Earth mourns her loss and try to find her killer.

Jackson told Reuters he was taken aback to find that in early screenings audiences "were simply not satisfied" with a scene of one character's death.

"They wanted far more violence," Jackson said, so the "Lord of the Rings" director went back to the editing room to "basically add more violence and suffering."

"Lovely Bones" is among this year's most widely-anticipated films because the book was such a bestseller and because Jackson took the beloved "Lord of the Rings" tales and made films that were both true to their source material and fun for movie fans.

In "Lovely Bones", Stanley Tucci plays the man who rapes and kills Susie, which is no secret. "The mystery is, what's going to happen to him," Jackson said.

The director said it was important the movie receive a PG13 rating in the United States from the industry group that deems the kind of audiences to which films are generally acceptable.

A PG13 rating, which advises that a movie is aimed at over 13 year-olds rather than younger groups, is generally believed by Hollywood studios to appeal to the widest possible audience, and Jackson said he wanted "The Lovely Bones" to generate broad interest.

A MORE GRUESOME DEATH

Yet, with a higher level of violence, it may have earned an "R" rating, meaning it would be seen mostly by adults.

So, when shooting one death scene of a man falling to his death, Jackson chose to simply have him disappear off the edge of a cliff and not show the gruesome details of his fall.

"We got a lot of people telling us that they were disappointed with this death scene, as they wanted him to see (the character) in agony and suffer a lot more," he said. "They just weren't satisfied."

Jackson said he and his filmmakers were perplexed because they had already shot much of the movie. They had to go back to the editing room and use digital effects to add shots where (the character) bounces against the cliff on the way down.

"We had to create a whole suffering death scene just to give people the satisfaction they needed," he said.

Fortunately for Jackson, the movie still retained its more youth-friendly rating for U.S. audiences, and even before its release, it is once again generating Oscar buzz for Jackson.

But the director said that his best director and best picture Academy Awards for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," satisfied his dreams of Oscar glory.

"I do feel I don't need to prove anything anymore. But winning and even being nominated for an Oscar is still an enormous privilege and big thrill," he said.

"The great thing about having won is that you do feel, no matter what happens in your career now, you've always got that Oscar and it's a nice thing to wake up to in the morning and go to the office and see them sitting there on the shelf."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Beautiful poster for "The Lovely Bones"

"The Lovely Bones" featurette

Trailers for "...Doctor Parnassus", "Where the Wild Things Are", and "The Lovely Bones

Two test screening reviews for "The Lovely Bones"

Source: Ainitcoolnews.com

Oh sure, this is my first time... The movie was BETTER than I expected, and that's saying a lot because it's Peter Jackson... First the movie on a whole made me feel wonderful, which I didn't expect with such a dark premise, but Pete and crew are amazing with that kind of stuff. They tell you in the beginning what's going to happen, even so, there are parts that make you grip your chair with anticipation, or cringe with disgust even though you knew it was coming, and then the stuff you weren't prepared for, well it just blows you away.

All the performances were fantastic, all the characters emotions felt so real, which I think is difficult with this kind of subject matter, no one can imagine this sort of thing happening to them. But Suzy Salmon, the main character, is superb. This character needed a strong actress and she shines through the whole movie, it's her that pulls you in a makes you care. You instantly feel for all the characters, even the bad one, which is strange...

And the effects, which I would say hit about 25-30 minutes in, but I was so enthralled it's hard to say. But once the effects hit they are there apart of the movie and it feels so right. I didn't know what to expect of "heaven" but once you saw it you knew that's exactly what it was supposed to look like. It's actually like you get the pay off of the movie in the beginning, but it last the whole movie. While I was watching, there were moments that would make think of a different movie, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but every time I thought that, I'd immediately note how this movie has done it 10 times better.

I know you want more details on "heaven", but it really should be a surprise, but I'd say, and I'm no expert, but it seems all the effects are CG, no "physical" effects from what I could tell. When you were in "heaven" with Suzy it seemed real, and then something entirely impossible and beautiful, or scary would happened and you'd be reminded it wasn't reality. I'd say the whole movie had a slightly "other world" look to it, and a variety of camera work of the likes I don't think I've seen from Pete.

This movie is definitely more in the vein of Heavenly Creatures which we expected, but this has something more, a new movie and style for Pete Jackson and I love it. I think the less you know the better, but anyway you see it, you're in for a real treat this December (hopefully).

Love to The Geeks,

-LongLiveRock-

Now the below review is certainly not as positive as the above review. It reads a tad on the snarky side to me, but the below review is just as valid a view-point as the above. I will say that it sounds as if the source material itself wasn't up this person's alley as many of their complaints stem from the novel. The only area of concern for me personally is the talk about Jackson's camerawork and editing being jarring. I hope that's not the case... it's definitely not Jackson's M.O.

Anyway, here's the second review, the other side of the coin:

Dear Aint-It-Cool,

Last night I saw a test screening of Lovely Bones. It was said to be a work in progress with missing effects shots and the editing process was still ongoing. I don't know, I didn't see any scenes where there was obviously a CGI monster missing or anything. There were a few effect shots that didn't look finished and a bunch of spots that could use some color correction. But I usually feel that way walking out of a finished movie and this wasn't any more so. I know the score is usually one of the last elements to be added but I'm under the impression this was the Brian Eno score and not a temp.

The story is about a bright and sensitive preteen girl (Saoirse Ronan) who loves photography; then she gets savagely murdered by a child abductor. She is consequently taken to a magical afterlife of imaginative wonder while her family is torn apart by overwrought drama. And they also are trying to find her killer. The same killer whose identity we learned an hour ago.

This child abductor character was played by Stanly Tucci who I did not recognize and literally looked like he was dressed as a child molester for Halloween. He had a child molester mustache, a child molester hairline, child molester glasses, and he spoke with a child molester speech impediment. If he were a pirate he'd have an eye patch and three peg legs.

There's a line when Ronan's character is exploring this fantastical new afterlife of wonder and she decides it's not quite heaven and not quite the world of the living "but a little bit of both". That's the film's issue in a nut shell. It's two completely different things and they go together about as poorly as possible. The editing and camera work are jarring, blunt and clumsy. I've never seen Jackson (He's the director so I shoulda mentioned him by now) work like this, he keeps yanking me out of the scene and I hate it. There's lots of cross cutting between the two settings; the girl is lost in a forest of butterfly wings meanwhile her dad (Mark Wahlberg who I haven't mentioned) has a nervous breakdown and screams at his wife (a very unlikable Rachel Weisz) until they both cry. C'mon, I'm trying to escape to a world of magic here.

Apparently they're aiming for a pg-13 , that's baffling. Lovely Bones is like a PG film and an R forced together in a shot gun wedding. I could see young girls really loving parts of this movie. Too bad the other parts are about a young girl being abducted and murdered. Might be kind of a tough sell.

This cut had all these parts that don't fit. Why is Susan Sarandon in this movie? Why does the film turn into Rear Window at the 11th hour? Why does the murdered girl have an Asian sidekick in the afterlife?

That's about as far as I'm willing to go in ripping this unfinished film. I definitely see how this is a work in transition and I hope this cut is like the missing link to the good film they end up making. There's emotionally effective bits, impressive visual accomplishments and Saoirse Ronan is quite good in the lead (except it stops being the lead half way through). They need to pick a direction, dial down the shrieking sound design they use to cover up the absence of suspense and tone down the heavy handed camera work and editing. If they address all those issues in a final cut I'd definitely be interested in giving this film another look.

More new pictures from "The Lovely Bones"

Another mysterious glimpse at "The Lovely Bones", featuring Stanley Tucci

A (literal) glimpse of Heaven; first image from Peter Jackson's adaptation of "The Lovely Bones"