Review of The Lovely Bones (2009) by Cameron J — 16 Jul 2012

Huh, for a second there, I thought that this was Pete Jackson heading back to his roots, because considering that this film is rather cheesy, about murder and has "Bones" in the title, I was expecting this to be the Oscar-Winner's revisiting of the gory horror-comedy genre. Yeah, I know that was a bit of a stretch, especially when you consider that, from the sounds of the concept, this film seems more like Jackson's revisiting of less sweeping dramas like "Heavenly Creatures", but really, I think that I would be making even more of a stretch if I were to connect this film to "Heavenly Creatures". Granted, this is a drama with thriller aspects, Heaven as a major theme and a plot dealing with murder and a teenaged girl, but the key distinction with this film is that it's not terrible. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about how Peter Jackson finally made a good artsy drama of this type, and now is the time when the critics choose to come out and say that it doesn't work; this didn't appear to be an issue back in the '90s, when a gorror-comedy (See what I did there with "gorror"?) director thought it would be a good idea to make a should-be layered drama that had no layers or likable characters, but a whole heap of tedium. Granted, Peter Jackson still hardly comes close to getting this kind of drama completely right, because this film is still flawed to no end, yet that's something to be said about "Gods and Generals", and that film still turned out good... to me and, like, three other people. Well, this film isn't quite that relentlessly flawed, yet it's still far from something like "Titanic", even if it does help in securing the idea that Peter Jackson is pretty much the New Zealand James Cameron (They started with gory action films, played with sci-fi and snagged eleven Oscars on one film, alone, when they started making masterpieces of viscera-driven dramatic epics with relatively unparalleled budgets and groundbreaking visual effects; seriously, am I the only one pointing this out?), because Jackson, like Cameron, is pulling back the sweep just enough for you to remember that he's definately a much better director than he is a writer. Don't worry, this is still definately better writing than the junk on Lifetime that, well, this film probably still took some notes from, but really, if you thought that the writing in "The Two Towers" got to be a little corny, then brother, strap in, because as much as I like this film, I've got more than a couple of things to complain about when it comes to the script.

Most of the dialogue is so-so and a few bits of the dialogue is awful, whether it be in the corny teen back-and-forth that can be found early on or a point in which Saoirse Ronan's Susie Salmon character's would-be boyfriend, Ray Singh, played by Reece Ritchie, is barely a minute into his first conversation with our lead before he says, verbatim, "You are beautiful, Susie Salmon" (Seriously, Pete, you let that slide?), and while the dialogue is among the shoddier parts of the script, it's not the only tainted region, as almost all of the characters are such glaring and hardly layered types, whether it be Mark Wahlberg's Jack Salmon character as the cheesily extreme familyman, or Susan Sarandon's Grandma Lynn character as the obnoxiously sassy youth-craver of a grandmother who thinks that every problem can be solved with a good swig, or even Stanley Tucci's antagonistic George Harvey character, who they stopped just short of nicknaming Uncle George, because just about every time he hit the scene, I thought that I was watching a biopic on the starter of most every murderous pedophile stereotype known to man (I'd imagine the stereotypes kicked in around '70s, when everyone was looking that cheesy). All of these borderline bare-"bones" (Yes, I said it) characters and even a fair deal of melodrama are all a part of this film's core flaw: an extreme lack of subtlety that really pronounces the extreme cheesiness and limited story originality, while what subtlety there is goes messily handled, and for that, blame is admittedly due to Peter Jackson, as director. Although his direction is considerably superior to his very faulty writing, Jackson, as director, is perhaps at fault the most when it comes to the unsubtlety, as he will often overemphasize meditative artistry in an awkwardly unassured fashion (There's a montage of Susie Salmon enjoying her magical interpretation of purgatory that's just plain embarassing, especially with the pretty bad song that they've got playing over it) that also drives inconsistency with the storytelling structure of the film once we dive back into traditional non-stylized narrative. However, that's not to say that the storytelling's unevenness ends with its structure's theme, because the film will often dwell to much upon one moment, then shift its focus onto another matter in a rather bumpy fashion, and when it comes down to handling the dynamicity of the film's tone, Jackson trips quite often, making the tonal shifts feel rather inorganic, with the only consistent aspect found in either tone being some unsubtle approaches, whether it be with the sometimes overbearingly bleak darker moments, or certain dramatic moments that will occasionally border on cloyingly sentimental. The film's concept is a promising yet very risky one that could either go the route of being exceptionally unique and piercing, or cliched in one of the worst of ways, and while this film is rarely, if ever absolutely disgusting in its faultiness when it comes to executing such a potentially strong concept, with all of the high points that I'll touch upon, there are occasions in which this film descends as low as the Lifetime channel, not necessarily in quality, as this film is never really that bad, but in feel, as the lack of tonal evenness, uniqueness, extensive depth and overall subtlety is profound, and I was expecting better from Pete Jackson, though not much better than you might think. As really good as Jackson's "King Kong" was and as consistently phenomenal as his masterpiece trilogy which needs no identification was, particularly when it came to the dramatic depth, Jackson still doesn't fit terribly snug in the intimate-scope drama department, having not been totally purged of his mistakes since his first break into the drama industry, "Heavenly Creatures", a film that many love but I found to be six layers of garbage, as it was such a tediously one-note dramatic disaster, and while Jackson is leaps and bounds ahead of that state with this film, were it more comfortable in its structure and style, with more subtlety and confidence and less manipulativeness and cheesiness, make no mistake, or rather, no "bones" about it (I'm sorry, but I just had to), the final product would have been brilliant and most likely solidified Jackson as one of today's great directors. However, as things stand, Jackson's still a fantastic filmmaker who may only bring this film to the state of genuinely good by just a bit more than a hair, but brings it to the state of genuinely good either way, because for every series of faults, there is a golden moment, with such aspects as technical value and style being particularly consistent in high quality.

Andrew Lesnie returns as Pete Jackson's photography director, and his work is, as always, truly phenomenal, boasting shot staging that's clever and slick in an almost immersively meditative fashion, with scope play that ranges from emotionally intimate, if not tensely claustrophobic, to even rather sweeping in scale (Pete Jackson can only go so long before he slips back into the epic genre), and it all goes complimented by the bouncing back of color and lighting in a hauntingly vivid fashion that is consistently handsome, with moments that really do take your breath away. As for the visual effects, they're cheesy in concept and often sadly misused to supplement the overbearing artistry of the film, though it's not like they're bad; in fact, they're quite impressive, slickly and seamlessly falling into the purgatory segments in a magical and lively fashion that reflects the fantastic spirituality found between Heaven and Earth, and while these effects are, again, often grossly misused to cheese things up, occasionally in an almost embarassing fashion, they're more often than not fairly impacting, being among the many impressive technical aspects that really do bring this world to life. Even the top-notch editing and stellar sound design are effective, snapping and resonating at just the right time to really sting their points across and supplement the atmosphere, which would be nothing if it was not built by Peter Jackson, who is a mess of a writer and heavily flawed as director, largely because he holds himself back with such a mess of a screenplay, yet is still such a skilled storyteller that, even with all of its countless faults and lapses in genuineness, the film will hit occasions in which Jackson really reminds us of his true talent. The effectiveness of the film is obviously tripped up by the tones' being so inconsistent in shift and consistent in unsubtlety, yet the fact of the matter is that Pete Jackson is just such a good director of tone, and while some moments are so overly theatrical in tone that you'll sometimes find yourself waiting for "To Be Continued" to pop up on the screen, Jackson really will find golden occasions, whether it be in tension or emotion, where he goes above and beyond the call of duty and pierces with brilliant skill in his crafting of quite a few effective moments, a few of which - whether it be the opening or a couple of intense and even emotional moments - aren't simply upstanding, but just plain incredible. The defining "death" segment - from Susie Salmon's entrapment with George Harvey, her murderer, to her coming to realize the horrible truth of what happened to her as her wandering spirit stumbles upon Harvey's triumphant bathing off of dirt and blood (Ooh, that was an especially nice and messed up touch) - is particularly remarkable, being nerve-crushingly intense and even quite poignant in its marrying of both emotion and tension in a chilling moment that sticks with you and sets a tone to this film that may go betrayed by the succeeding lapses in subtlety and jarring tonal shifts, yet leaves a deep enough impression to give you investment in the story, and it's not the only scene that does that, with a climactic, transcendent scene in which the Susie Salmon character discovers Heaven also being pretty blasted reference-worthy; you know that it's got to be well-directed emotional resonance if Jackson can take This Mortal Coil's boringly sappy cover of "Song to the Sirens" and somehow actually use it to make you, or at least just me, well, admittedly almost cry (Hey man, shut up, it was a well-done scene!). Jackson's hitting hard with the tone at certain points is just one of the good couple of things that he does right with this film, and while he is held back almost to the ends of the earth by what he doesn't get right, Jackson perseveres and keeps the film going, whether it be through his moments of inspired handling of the style and story or presentation of the occasional piece of genuinely provocative material. However, at the end of the day, Jackson's work is hardly spotless, yet his performers, on the other hand, never fail at stepping up to the plate, for although a couple of our performers go pulled quite a ways back by such faulty and scarce material, when they hit, they really do carry this film and leave impressions.

Rachel Weisz graces the screen for only so much time before she's awkwardly forced out of the film in a messy fashion, only to eventually return in a just as awkwardly messy fashion that all but solidifies her momentary absence as an absolutely gratuitous subplot, and one that's barely focused upon enough to even be officially considered an subplot (Oh man, this film is so flawed), yet for the time that she's on as Abigail Salmon, she haunts with subtle, even occasionally piercing depth as the crushed mother who struggles to keep the family together after tragedy, when she herself needs mending, also going deeply torn by such an unbearable loss, thus making for a very good performance, but one cut so far down when it comes to material that she glows only for, man, what's got to be maybe less than five scenes, yet still glows, nevertheless. As for Mark Wahlberg, I've heard some people hammer down on him, stating that he's just not quite capable of pulling off something of this dramatic weight, whereas I feel that his performances in this film shows that he's capable of more things than at least I ever expected from him. Sure, Wahlberg's Jack Salmon character is written pretty cheesily and with only so many layers and material, yet on the occasions in which Wahlberg does find material to work with, he milks it for all its worth, something I really did not expect to say anytime soon, for although he's a good actor, he never really struck me as someone who could strike me, yet here he is, bursting with intense emotion and a powerful atmosphere that really cuts through, especially at an almost climactic scene in which Jack begins to make realizations that give him both an overwhelming sense of betrayal and a burning desire for closure, by any means necessary, which of course does away with his "Sweet Papa" image for a bit. Wahlberg conveys this defining moment in his character without saying a word, but instead donning an expressiveness that's so emotionally inspired, so transcendently intense and so atmospheric in a way that's definitive to the Jack Salmon character that it really takes your breath away, and shows that Wahlberg has more in him than we every would have thought. However, just like almost all of the other should-be phenomenal supporting performers in this film, Wahlberg is left with material so limited that you don't even have enough time to grow fully appreciative of this revelatory and substance-empowering performance, though also like all of the other great, but underwritten performers in this film, Wahlberg still gives us those golden moments, just a few more than most everyone else does, while most of the material goes to two particular standouts, one of whom being Stanley Tucci, who is made virtually unrecognizable through both seamless makeup effects and a just as seamless transformative acting performance that presents the faux innocence of the twisted George Harvey character in a charming and actually buyable fashion that's so convincing that he nearly fools you into believing in him as a nice guy, a thought that quickly dies on its feet once George Harvey heads back to his sick intentions in a character transition that could have been overwhelming inorganic, considering that Harvey's seemingly innocent ruse and seemingly boundlessly sick true self are entirely different beings, yet Tucci executes the layers with awe-inspring proficiency, portraying the chillingly twisted darkness of Harvey with effectively antagonistic inhumanity, as well as a degree of heartbreaking humanity that really plays with the false innocent side of Harvey and leaves you to feel just as betrayed as the characters he leaves in trauma, if they're lucky enough to at least get that, and while the George Harvey character is conceptually structured to be almost artificial in his obviousness, Tucci doesn't let the unrecognizable transformation go to waste by really selling you on our antagonist in an enthrallingly believable fashion. The other standout is, of course, our young leading lady Saoirse Ronan, whose material, I must say, feels rather underwritten, yet that limiting of material is all but drowned out, for what material that does fall upon Ronan goes executed with such impeccable brilliance, from an American accent that she nails.