It’s 1973, and Susie Salmon is fourteen years old. Susie is a typical teen. She loves her parents – though they sometimes aggravate her – has a crush on a boy in her high school, and has plans for her future which include becoming a wildlife photographer. But one afternoon, just a few days for Christmas, Susie is kidnapped on her way home from school and brutally murdered by a sexual predator. What follows is a tale of grief and grace as Susie’s family struggles to come to terms with the tragedy even as their dead daughter does everything she can to reach out to them.
The movie is based on Alice Sebold‘s novel of the same name, but it lacks Sebold’s memorable characters and intricately interwoven plotlines. In fact, compared to the novel, the movie is something of a disappointment. But what the movie lacks in reinterpretation, it more than makes up for in visual spectacle.
Director Peter Jackson seems to love nothing more than to create scenes of otherworldly beauty. Just like in his previous works, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and an earlier film, “Heavenly Creatures”, Jackson’s camerawork is phenomenal. His use of light and shadow give depth to the scenes, and his juxtaposition of the In-Between (the realm between heaven and earth) and the everyday make it seem as if all we need to do is reach out our hand into order to make contact with the dead.
Jackson creates an afterlife which is both whimsical and lovely, ghostly and frightening. Like a Magritte painting, the world of the In-between is both familiar and fantastic. It pairs the breath-taking beauty of nature – lofty mountains, fields of wheat, solemn forests – with stylized symbols of the world of the living – ships in glass bottles, a gazebo, and brilliantly colored beach balls. This movie is a must see on the big screen if for no other reason than to witness the panoramic beauty of this supernatural realm.
But while Jackson enjoys a spectacle, this movie doesn’t dwell on the grisly details of Susie’s rape and murder. In fact, Jackson accomplishes something remarkable: he creates scenes of almost unbearable tension without reveling in salacious depictions of violence. But while this movie is tasteful, it is also very grim. This is not a piece of bubblegum. Some parts, such as when a newly deceased Susie enters the bathroom of her killer as he is washing the blood and mud from his body, are so ghastly and eerie that they would be at home in a horror flick.
Jackson’s eye candy is not the only thing that the movie has going for it. Although the characterization is sometimes weak, there are several outstanding performances by the actors. Susan Sarandon excels in her role as the heavy-smoking, hard-drinking grandmother. Her performance is a breath of fresh air in what can, at times, be a ponderous film. And Stanley Tucci’s depiction as the predatory neighbor is chilling. In the end, however, it is Saoirse Ronan’s performance as the innocent fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon that makes the movie work as well as it does.
“The Lovely Bones” is both beautiful and awful, a thought-provoking drama and gripping movie of suspense. Although it doesn’t slavishly follow the novel on which it’s based, it does let the mood of the book shine through.
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