The Lovely Bones

Directed By: Peter Jackson

Written By: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boeyens, and Peter Jackson

Starring: Saorsie Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon, Michael Imperioli, and Rose McIver.

Director of Photography: Andrew Lesnie, Editor: Jabez Olssen, Production Designer: Naomi Shohan, Original Music: Brian Eno

Rated: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language.

    Peter Jackson has crafted a truly original style in his sweeping visions of Middle Earth and Skull Island. A master of special effects and epic storytelling, Mr. Jackson brings us into environments and lands like no other. However, his films often lack emotional depth, using grandiosity in storytelling to do the job for him. Perhaps that is why The Lovely Bones, Mr. Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel of the same name, is so off-tone, falsely emotional, and downright frustrating. Mr. Jackson may use bold strokes all over his film, but his film is a mess.

    The biggest problem is that unlike his previous entries, he has the best cast possible for the adaptation. Saorsie Ronan, coming off of her brilliant performance in Atonement, plays Susie Salmon, a young girl in 1970s suburbia who lives a happy life—she likes taking pictures, has occasional fights with her parents, and has a crush on a cute boy. Unfortunately, Susie is murdered.

    It is this early plot point that reveals a major problem with Mr. Jackson’s adaptation. Ms. Sebold’s novel opens with Susie’s rape and murder, based on her personal experience of being raped. The event was a major inspiration for the novel, which examines how people grieve. Mr. Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boeyens make no reference to the event, and instead stick to simple, straightforward murder. They also transform the murderer, Mr. Harvey (played by the film’s highlight, Stanley Tucci), from a rapist with a troubled past into a clean-cut murderer.

    Similarly, the Salmon family, with Mark Wahlberg as dad, Rachel Weisz as mom, and Susan Sarandon as grandma, has such poorly adapted responses to the tragedy that the film is often more humorous than serious. While Susie disappears into her personal heaven, a playful collection of Mr. Jackson’s visual effects at their boldest, her family attempts to move on from their grief. But again, Mr. Jackson replaces the dynamic parts of the novel with more simplistic interpretations.

    Under Jackson’s bold strokes, The Lovely Bones refuses to find a tone to fit its subtle story. While a few sequences provide some tension and are well constructed, the film flails on screen in its attempts to figure out the story it wants to tell. Mr. Jackson leaves most of his actors out to dry, completely lost in who their characters are supposed to be—although Ms. Sarandon’s character is hilariously useless and unnecessary.

    If The Lovely Bones had been handled by a director who takes small steps to create big emotions, it would have had a stronger focus and could have been more successful. Yet Mr. Jackson is simply too big for a small story, a story that needs to be personal instead of bombastic. Mr. Jackson is a master of the big and epic, but subtlety is not his specialty.