white snails

Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones is in one word beautiful. Beautiful like a Salvador Dali painting: surreal and fantastical. The film taps into our childhood visions and ideas of heaven and plays out every families worst nightmare scenario, the murder of a young child. 

Susie Salmon tells the story of her brief life and subsequent murder from the beyond. Susie can only look on from the "in-between" at her family and her murderer.  These "in-between" moments take your breath away and even though it borders on the super-sappy, you cannot help but smile. 

These moments are powerful, yet sadly they are not so strong that they can carry the entire film. When the film swings back away from this "in-between" back into reality, this is where the film begins to suffer. I found myself kind of bored. While there were some moments where this film seemed to shine, particularly Mark Wahlberg's performance as a grieving father, the film loses its momentum. The pacing seemed off and towards the end of the film I was getting a bit tired of the constant narration that continues throughout the film. Jackson seems to have some difficulty making up his mind about how the family should grieve. At times the focus is on her father, or her mother, or her sister. I have a feeling that this issue is something that is better dealt with in the novel.  Jackson, being unable to properly stitch together these different issues seems to direct all of his attention into the "in-between", and as a result the rest of the film is pushed to the side. The film thrives in these surreal and heavenly "in-between" moments and so it is worth suffering through the drab reality that follows for the majority of the film.

I would still urge you to go out and see this film though. Enjoy.