The Lovely Bones (2009)

Murder most bland

A big-screen version of such a complex, fast-paced book was always going to be a challenge. Director Peter Jackson, he of Lord of the Rings fame, had his work cut out portraying the tale of a brutally murdered 14-year-old looking down from heaven on her shattered family, writes Emma Portier Davis.

While Alice Sebold’s novel spends much of its time exploring the devastated lives left behind, the movie pays scant attention to developing these all-important characters.

Mark Walhberg’s (The Departed (2006)) portrayal of the father of Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan, who dazzled audiences in Atonement (2007)) lacks depth, although he does a fine line in tortured, hurt looks.

Rachel Weisz, of The Constant Gardener (2005), who is usually a favourite actress of mine, barely resembles a ‘torn-apart mother’, and her decision to ‘get away from it all’ is hurried into the plot, almost as an add-on. Together, the couple are barely convincing as parents who have just experienced such unimaginable horror, and their relationship with Susie’s sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) features very little in the script.

McIver, to be fair, has her moments, coming dangerously close as she does to becoming the paedophile’s next victim but, in general, the family members have lacklustre roles and there’s always a sense that they are mere devices to keep the plot moving, rather than characters in their own right.

Jackson has chosen instead to focus far too much on Susie’s saccharine, candy-floss heaven (to my mind, it’s garishly hellish) with just a few glimpses of the truly horrifying reality of her death, allowing Ronan little scope to show her talent. Meanwhile, the nature of heaven, a philosophical cornerstone of the book, is dumbed down.

The goriest details – the discovery of Susie’s elbow – are glossed over. It’s only Stanley Tucci (What Just Happened? (2004)), as the paedophile George Harvey, who saves the film. In fact, he switches between kindly neighbour to evil monster so spine-creepingly well that he’s almost unbearable to watch.

For fans of the book, the movie, while watchable, falls disappointingly short.

135 mins.