The Lovely Bones

What Jack Says.....

Like most other women I read the book prior to seeing the movie. This is the story of a girl who is raped and murdered by her neighbor and her family coping with her death as she watches them from her heaven.

I really did enjoy the book, but I was not so thrilled with the movie. The book punches you in the face in the first 10 pages and the movie lacked that. They seemed to have taken all the interesting character qualities out for the movie. The book was less about Susie Salmon being murdered and it was more about her family coping and moving on without her. That was so not the way the movie went down at all.

In the trailers they portrayed this movie as a suspenseful psychological thriller and the book isn't that way one bit. Susie spends the first half of the movie trying in cope with her death and trying to find a way to contact her living family. In the book she is pretty much fine with her death from the get go and she is more concerned that her family won't make it without her so she watches them.

Stanley Tucci was terrifying in every way so good job to that because he needed to be. Right when I was starting to see him as a good guy he goes and does this. I was really upset at the fact that they took the rape scene out of the movie. They don't even mention it in the movie at all and they play it off as if she is just simply murdered. I feel that this was an imperative piece of the puzzle and the story lacked because of it. I am not a fan of rape, but in this instance it was absolutely necessary to the story line.

I know that it is always tough when you adapt a book into a film, but sometimes it works. Delores Claiborne, The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me are all adaptations that worked. I realize that those are all Stephen King novels and most of his novels are eons better then their film adaptations. These just happen to be exceptions to the rule.

I just simply hoped that by putting Peter Jackson at the forefront of another piece of literature that he could give it some justice. I hate to say it Peter, but you failed me. I was so wrapped up in the fact that the movie was missing all novel's fantastic qualities, that I didn't even look at the directing. The corn field parts were probably the best parts, but they still felt like throw away scenes.

On a positive note, this was some of the best production design I have seen in a long time. Naomi Shohan gets the credit for this and I can't say that I am surprised. After doing the production design for such movies as American Beauty, Constantine and I am Legend I was delighted. The production design in American Beauty changed movies forever.

Overall, I wanted more from this movie. I hoped that with it being nearly 2 1/2 hours that they could capture even a morsel of the emotion and grief that the book had.

Overall I give this one a 4. Huge disappointment.