‘The Lovely Bones’
Miscasting doesn't just happen to cast members.
Directors get miscast, too, as "The Lovely Bones" sadly demonstrates.
Author Alice Sebold's 2002 best-seller focuses on the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl -- and its aftermath -- from the victim's beyond-the-grave perspective.
Director Peter Jackson's movie version preserves the book's dead-narrator twist, a time-honored cinematic device that stretches back to Billy Wilder's classic "Sunset Boulevard" and beyond.
But, after the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and his "King Kong" remake, Jackson can't make a move -- or a movie -- without his bag of special-effects tricks, whether they fit the movie or not.
In the case of "The Lovely Bones," they not only don't fit, they blunt the emotional impact of what ought to be a heart-wrenchingly emotional tale: the life, and afterlife, of young, vibrant Susie Salmon.
A child of '70s suburbia, Susie ("Atonement's" radiant Saoirse Ronan), leads a life straight out of a heartwarming TV sitcom: hardworking dad Jack (Mark Wahlberg), loving mom Abigail (Rachel Weisz), adorably impish siblings (Rose McIver, Christian Thomas Ashdale) and, occasionally, even more impish grandma (Susan Sarandon).
There are family dinners around the table, bike rides around the neighborhood, shopping mall excursions, stolen glances in the high-school hallway between Susie and the dreamy, dark-eyed senior (Reece Ritchie) who's her first crush.
And then there are the family's pleasant exchanges with keep-to-himself neighbor George Harvey (a twitchy, tormented Stanley Tucci), who builds intricately detailed dollhouses and prunes his blood-red roses.
That is, when he's not meticulously plotting horrific murders -- such as the one that takes Susie's life.
Even though Susie's loved ones feel her shattering loss, we don't feel with them. Not with Jackson calling the shots.
Rather than focus on where the real drama is -- the search for Susie's killer and the anguish of those she left behind -- Jackson often lets his attention wander.
All too often, it wanders to Susie's new home somewhere up there in the great beyond. Not quite heaven, but on the way, it's a trippy, Day-Glo Never-Never Land rendered with all the special effects modern movie money can buy.
And every time Susie and her fellow spirits romp among "the in-between's" rainbows and magically metamorphosing trees, "The Lovely Bones" loses its dramatic momentum -- and its grip on our imagination.
More's the pity, because there are times Jackson and frequent co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (Walsh has been with him since his stunning 1994 breakthrough, "Heavenly Creatures") seem like they're onto something.
Especially when "The Lovely Bones" concentrates on the tale's gripping detective-story aspects, as a mournful detective (Michael Imperioli) and, eventually, Susie's sister Lindsey (McIver) investigate Mr. Harvey's curiously confined world. (There's a visually intriguing sequence at Harvey's home, when Jackson films an exchange between the cop and the possible suspect through the tiny windows, and off-kilter perspective, of one of Harvey's dollhouses.)
At many other times, however, "The Lovely Bones" seems as lost and disembodied as Susie herself, floating among wildly varied elements and rarely settling down to explore anything in depth.
Sometimes it focuses, briefly, on Susie's parents, struggling to deal with her death -- and losing themselves in the process. Next, it's on to Grandma Lynn's slapstick, booze-fueled attempts at keeping the family going, which seem like they belong in another movie (or one of those '70s TV shows) altogether.
Throughout, we watch these and other characters face grief, growing pains, even serial-killer madness. And while we may feel for them, we never feel with them.
As a result, "The Lovely Bones" seems suspended between life and afterlife -- all of which makes it seem strangely lifeless.
Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
Carol Cling's Movie Minute
Review
"The Lovely Bones"
135 minutes
PG-13; themes involving disturbing violent content and images, profanity
Grade: C
at multiple locations
Deja View
A wide array of movies depict life in the afterlife. A few favorites:
"Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) -- Accidentally sent to heaven before his time, a prizefighter (Robert Montgomery) returns to Earth in a new body in this classic fantasy, remade in 1978 as "Heaven Can Wait."
"Heaven Can Wait" (1943) -- In director Ernst Lubitsch's wickedly witty comedy, an unrepentant ladies' man (Don Ameche) recalls his amorous past -- to justify his admission into Hades.
"A Matter of Life and Death" (1946) -- In this classic fantasy from British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (also known as "Stairway to Heaven"), a World War II aviator (David Niven) who cheats death pleads for his life in a celestial court.
"Truly Madly Deeply" (1990) -- In "English Patient" director Anthony Minghella's poignant feature debut, a grief-stricken translator (Juliet Stevenson) is thunderstruck when her recently deceased cellist lover (Alan Rickman) turns up in her apartment.
"Defending Your Life" (1991) -- After he dies in a car crash, an executive (writer-director Albert Brooks) finds himself in Judgment City, where he tries to justify his existence -- and falls for a too-good-to-be-true fellow guest (Meryl Streep).
-- By CAROL CLING
