MyRating: YY1/2Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language
US Gross: US$ 44.0 Million
Worldwide Gross: US$ 93.1 Million
Susie Salmon (Ronan) is a happy 14-year-old young girl who is about to experience all the excitements in her life as a teenager, having a loving family, pursuing a new hobby as a photographer, and falling in love for the first time. But all those are suddenly robbed from her when she is killed by her neighbour, a middle-age man serial killer. She then goes to heaven but reluctantly let go of her past on earth.
From heaven, she watches how her family is slowly falling apart, as her father (Wahlberg) never gives up on doing all he could to solve her daughter's murderer case, while her mother (Weisz) tries very hard to forget, put everything behind and move on. But both of them are badly broken heart. She also watches every step of her killer, as the man is slowly feeling safe and comfortable with himself, when the case seems to be unresolved after the time goes by. Knowing that sooner or later she will have to let go of everything on earth, Susie desperately wants her murderer to be caught, before the man dumps her body to a place where nobody could find her forever.
The story is adapted from the best selling novel of Alice Sebold, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and became the word-of-mouth in 2002. It has a very promising and interesting story, but it was not executed very well on screen by Peter Jackson. The story is not flowing smoothly. The many slow motions used through out the movie (which I believe the purpose is to give dramatic impacts) makes the film become slow and a bit dragging. And the heaven, even though visually beautiful, is looks like a colorful surreal children playground.
The actors are doing a good job. Saoirse Ronan is impressive as Susie, which puts her as one of the promising young actresses in Hollywood. Mark Wahlberg is also quite succeed in showing his emotions of losing her daughter. Rachel Weisz is just okay as she was not getting too many screen time. While Susan Sarandon's character as the grandmother is a bit off from the whole story with her comedic performance. And Stanley Tucci is good as the neighbour George Harvey, which made him nominated for the Best Supporting Actor by both the Golden Globe and the Oscar.
The director seemed to do this project on his big break while lying on the beach, after finishing his mega projects, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. No, I was exaggerated. But The Lovely Bones was indeed something out of his comfort zone, as Mr. Jackson is usually directing monsters and goblins and elves. This looks like an experiment to him for something different. However, it was a good experiment from the great director as the result is not bad. But could have been better. (MJ)
