I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Peter Jackson's interpretation of Alice Sebold's novel, The Lovely Bones. The reviews have been mixed, to say the least, and it seemed that Jackson might have lost his touch in a dream project that had got out of hand. No so, as The Lovely Bones is a fantastic piece of film-making that can proudly stand alongside Jackson's other achievements (I'm talking Heavenly Creatures no Meet The Feebles).
The story follows Susie Salmon (like the fish, as she reminds us) who is murdered by the local nutter, on her way home from school. As her family struggle to cope with their grief, Susie looks on from her own, personal heaven, a limbo state she will eventually leave, once her life on earth is resolved.
The film's tone is somewhat surprising, given the subject of child murder, but it is very welcome and successful. Rather than a grim, kitchen sink approach to the subject matter, Jackson treats this fantastic tale as, well, a fantasy. It has the quality of a dark fable...a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. From the heroine's whispered voice over, Jackson's colour grading of the celluloid (adapted to the emotion of each scene), the 70's decoration and furnishings (as if setting it in another world, not just another time) to the obvious surrealism of Suzie's heavenly landscapes. This could have been just another traumatic family drama with lots of ranting, sobbing and misery, but Jackson elevates proceedings to an almost romanticised level, embedded the subtext from ground level, in the script, right up through to Brian Eno's hypnotically ambient score...all helping to capture a dream-like quality (or nightmarish, depending on the situation). So, it doesn't present a down and dirty, harsh view of the world. More, a heightened reality from where it explore it's themes.
More than once, The Lovely Bones seems to be concentrating on the wonder of 'life', and not depressing nature of death, as it's morbid plot might indicate. In an early sequence, we see Susie take her suffocating brother to hospital. It's not a moment of unrelenting hysteria and emotional high stakes, yet one of exhilaration; a dangerous yet upbeat moment that is part of life's roller coaster. Classic songs intersect the story, notably The Hollies "Long Tall Woman" which adds an energetic vibrancy to the film, even after Suzie's death.
And Susie's journey is one of fully embracing life..."to keep going until it's done", as her father tells her, which is embodied in her quest for that, elusive first kiss. I love the way, at the films climax, that we're led to believe (as the slimy git rolls the combination safe, containing her remains, towards a bottomless pit) that Susie's reason for remaining in afterlife limbo, is to see her murderer get caught. It isn't. To this, she's always been an observer, watching her father investigate or noticing how her killer operates. Where she's intervened in the living world, is through the plot device of Ruth Connors (by touching her hand, and finally, by possessing her) to achieve that celebration of life, the kiss, that had eluded her after her death. This theme is further represented in Susie's clothing, all bright yellows and blues, which again represents her lust for life, and not any negative outlook she may have.
If the film has a theme, it's one of 'letting go', a subject matter not too dissimilar to Spielberg's afterlife fantasy Always. The opening shot shows us a toy snowman in a snow globe who, as Susie's dad tells us, is perfectly happy in his little bubble. The rest of the main characters have their little bubbles too which
, initially, they're happy in. Jackson uses strong iconography (further strengthening the visual impact) of the film, to represent this. So Dad, Jack Salmon, has the bubble of his self-driven murder investigation, represented by the ships in bottles, that he makes. Creepy Mr Harvey has the bubble of the murder of women, represented by a house (his own green property, the house on Susie's stolen bracelet, and the dollhouses/bird hides/children's dens that he constructs). Susie's Mother's bubble is everything outside of Susie's room, since she's unable to confront the loss of her daughter (so the room itself represents her world). And Suzie herself has the abstract depiction of 'heaven', itself focusing on the safe confines of a bandstand.
All of these characters are initially content within these confines until unhappiness descends as they're unable to break away...to let go of their needs or obsessions. For her parents, the key to letting go is by embracing life, and each other; to recognise that the remaining family members are still the key to happiness. For Mr Harvey, even in his final moments he's trapped in his bubble, when fate...or is it a spiritually foretold (the icicle is a strong, recurring motif) moment of intervention (is it Susie?) ends his life (funny the way he's almost literaly become the snowman in the snowglobe, with the heavy snowfall, except his bubble has become the death of him). Even Susie's grandmother has a bubble, that of retaining her youth and staying drunk but she seems to be the only one who's happy to stay that way.
The film is full of motifs which resonate throughout the film. The safe is her makeshift coffin, and the symbol of Mr Harvey's secret...locked away. The heavenly tree represents life, which Susie must go beyond, if she is to let go of her personal purgatory, and be at spiritual rest. Then there's the rose, which too becomes to mean innocent life, which Harvey thinks he wants to care for, but ultimately wants to let die. These symbols also materialise in the dream world, intruding in Susie's consciousness so that she's alerted to earthly events (the bottled ships spectacularly smashing upon the shore as her fathers frustrations reveal themselves)...and we the audience are told of Susie's emotional state this way too. I never once thought the CGI dreamscapes overstayed their welcome. Rather they helped tell the story in an original and beautiful way, while fitting in to the fairytale context of the film's style. In fact, for Susie's character to participate in an emotional arc, the CG landscape is one of the tools needed to convey her journey. Without it, she's just a narrater. But with it, we get to feel the hopefulness ,isolation, fear and joy of Susie Salmon.
The cast are strong. Saoirse Ronan is perfectly cast as Susie. Her soft vocal tones and striking eyes capture Susie's innocence, yet strength of will. Mark Whalberg does a decent job as her father Jack, never lettiong the character's obsessions turn the driven self-styled detective into an unsympathetic Dad. Sarandon gets to have a lot of fun while Stanley Tucci steals the show as Mr Harvey, the uncomfortably, nearly-but-not-quite-normal monster that kills Susie. Rachel Weisz is fine as Susie's mother, but it's with this character that the movie makes it's one big mistake. The role of Abigail Salmon is tragically under used. Perhaps there are Abigail scenes on the cutting room floor, but her abandoning of the family, and subsequent return never feel convincing. The character has little screen time to make her story arc work, and Weisz, good she may be, is unable to convey what is required.
However, there's some fantastic scenes woven throughout The Lovely Bones; Susie's face to face encounter with her crush, Ray, in school. Her post murder panic, running through the streets, not realising she's dead. Whalberg lighting a candle...and the resulting flicker. And the masterclass of tension that has her sister Lindsay, who's taken up the murder investigation, breaks into Mr Harvey's house to uncover some evidence. There are many of these, some visual, some musical...all great.
Tense, moving, sad and poignant...it's great stuff. Not a gut-wrenching examination of the horror of murder (there's plenty a movie ot there if you want that...just see The Road), but a willfully theatrical, but ethereal, bedtime story, that stays with you long after Susie says 'goodbye'. It won't be to every one's tastes, and I suspect there's a deeper director's cut in existence, but this is a wonderfully original work for a talented, original artist.
