Peter Jackson’s Latest Suffers from Too Much Special Effects and Too Little Character Development
Peter Jackson’s newest release The Lovely Bones bears greater similarity to his smaller films (particularly the wonderful Heavenly Creatures) than to the sprawling, epic Lord of the Rings trilogy—but it’s unlike any film he has directed previously. Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel is a startling, sometimes brutal, and often touching tale of a girl whose life ends before she even has her first kiss. Unfortunately the movie, though beautifully filmed, is an incoherent mashup of the book’s most tender aspects.
The novel opens with a striking, abrupt proclamation: “My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” After her murder, Susie watches from the Inbetween, a kind of non-Christian purgatory, as her family struggles with her death. Jackson, whose visionary filmmaking has earned him massive acclaim in the past, creates a heaven of brilliant, surreal landscapes in which Susie and her fellow dead frolic. The best aspects of Sebold’s novel, though, are the poignant, sometimes illicit relationships that formed in the wake of Susie’s murder. The film focuses far too much on the fantastic Inbetween and not enough on earth. Susie’s mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz), father Jack (Mark Wahlberg), and sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) deal with her death in their own ways, as all grieving people do. However, either to shorten the film’s length o secure a PG-13 rating, Jackson skips o glosses over many of the aspects of the novel that made it so horrific and beautiful. The result, as with so many book-to-film adaptations, is a pretty, superficial muddle.
Make no mistake, Jackson is a great filmmaker (if te forget about King Kong), and his Film are nearly always visually impressive and soundly acted. The Lovely Bones is both. If Jackson’s Inbetween bears any resemblance to a possible afterlife, we should all rejoice. Fifteen-year old Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) has real stella, star potential, and The Lovely Bones is proof she can carry a movie. She manages to play both snotty but sweet teenager and wise voyeur with grace and self-possession. Stanley Tucci, playing Susie’s murderer Mr. Harvey, is utterly terrifying. His affected voice and piercing eyes make him nearly unrecognizable—and Jackson’s talent behind the camera is most perceptible when he focuses on Mr. Harvey. When he lures Susie into the underground hatch where she’s murdered, extreme close-ups and a distortion lens build a horrific, creeping dread. Later in the film when Susie’s sister Lindsey breaks into Mr. Harvey’s house, the tension is nearly unbearable, the only sound in the theater the whir of the projector. Weisz and Wahlberg are effective parents, grieving both separately and together in their own ways. Susan Sarandon also does well as Susie’s alcoholic, slightly nutty Grandma Lynn, but she’s comic relief in the simplest sense, which is utterly incongruous with the rest of the film and seems unnecessary.
Peter Jackson’s newest release The Lovely Bones bears greater similarity to his smaller films (particularly the wonderful Heavenly Creatures) than to the sprawling, epic Lord of the Rings trilogy—but it’s unlike any film he has directed previously. Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel is a startling, sometimes brutal, and often touching tale of a girl whose life ends before she even has her first kiss. Unfortunately the movie, though beautifully filmed, is an incoherent mashup of the book’s most tender aspects.
The novel opens with a striking, abrupt proclamation: “My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” After her murder, Susie watches from the Inbetween, a kind of non-Christian purgatory, as her family struggles with her death. Jackson, whose visionary filmmaking has earned him massive acclaim in the past, creates a heaven of brilliant, surreal landscapes in which Susie and her fellow dead frolic. The best aspects of Sebold’s novel, though, are the poignant, sometimes illicit relationships that formed in the wake of Susie’s murder. The film focuses far too much on the fantastic Inbetween and not enough on earth. Susie’s mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz), father Jack (Mark Wahlberg), and sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) deal with her death in their own ways, as all grieving people do. However, either to shorten the film’s length o secure a PG-13 rating, Jackson skips o glosses over many of the aspects of the novel that made it so horrific and beautiful. The result, as with so many book-to-film adaptations, is a pretty, superficial muddle.
Make no mistake, Jackson is a great filmmaker (if te forget about King Kong), and his Film are nearly always visually impressive and soundly acted. The Lovely Bones is both. If Jackson’s Inbetween bears any resemblance to a possible afterlife, we should all rejoice. Fifteen-year old Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) has real stella, star potential, and The Lovely Bones is proof she can carry a movie. She manages to play both snotty but sweet teenager and wise voyeur with grace and self-possession. Stanley Tucci, playing Susie’s murderer Mr. Harvey, is utterly terrifying. His affected voice and piercing eyes make him nearly unrecognizable—and Jackson’s talent behind the camera is most perceptible when he focuses on Mr. Harvey. When he lures Susie into the underground hatch where she’s murdered, extreme close-ups and a distortion lens build a horrific, creeping dread. Later in the film when Susie’s sister Lindsey breaks into Mr. Harvey’s house, the tension is nearly unbearable, the only sound in the theater the whir of the projector. Weisz and Wahlberg are effective parents, grieving both separately and together in their own ways. Susan Sarandon also does well as Susie’s alcoholic, slightly nutty Grandma Lynn, but she’s comic relief in the simplest sense, which is utterly incongruous with the rest of the film and seems unnecessary.
