The Lovely Bones (2009)

"It's stuffed full of Peter Jackson's typically dazzling imagery, but The Lovely Bones suffers from abrupt shifts between horrific violence and cloying sentimentality," -- Rotten Tomatoes

Huh?

"The Lovely Bones is a deporable film with thie message: if you're a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to." -- Roger Ebert

What???

A day after seeing the film, I'm still trying to sort through my thoughts about the film, so I did something a reviewer is not supposed to do, which is read through several reviews. Yet no one seems to have seen the movie I did. Or at least none of the reviews I did.

Most of the reviews do not like the protrayal of the afterlife. Too many effects, so many visuals that are distracting. I disagree. Yes, its visual. But for me, the visuals were not distracting, they work. That's because always front and center is Saoirse Ronan. Screen acting is often in the eyes, and Ronan's eyes at such a young ages are amazingly expressive.

The other part of the afterlife that is different from what I saw is the tone. I've read reviews, like Ebert's, which take apart the view of afterlife that is too happy. Yet I did not see this vision as happy. Ronan's character is not jumping for joy. She is so wrapped up in grief she is unable to move on. This is not seen as a celebration.

Yeah, there are shifts, but horrific violence? Where? The main character is murdered, but it isn't shown. And cloying sentimentality? Don't see that either. There are problems in the film, but cloying is not what I was seeing.

These are not the biggest problems with the film. There is some odd shifts in tone, but in different ways than described by Rotten Tomatoes. Most of the film is about learning to cope with loss, and moving on. Ronan's character is struggling with it in the afterlife, and her family is too. With one basic exception.

That would be Susan Sarandon's character. She blows in from some bad sitcom somewhere, and its jarring. Nothing about her character felt real to me. She's slapstick and completely at odds with the mournful tone of the rest of the film. A real bad distraction.

The other problem took me a little more time to realize. There are several scenes that are too quick, too abrupt. I suspect the problems of trying to adapt a book that did not read in two hours are at fault here. In trying to get all the moments from a book, the filmmakers just tried to cram too much in, blunting the effect of some of the scenes.

That said, this film will stay with me longer than better made, less daring films will. There is much to recommend and celebrate about this film. The scenes of a family trying to cope and move on from an unimaginable tragedy are effective. The scenes of an afterlife that are tryuly stunning. And I haven't mentioned the work of Stanley Tucci, in a subtle performance as a tortured soul. Miles apart from his work in Julie & Julia. He has had a great year.

Flawed? Yes. Worthy? Yes. But I'm still trying to figure out what movie the other reviewers saw. Grade: B