The Lovely Bones

This film was released in 2009 and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in 2010, but I just watched it  on DVD the other night, hmm so this insight might be too late. Anyway...

The movie is quite impressive at first with a startling narration of the lead character, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), that she was only 14 years old when she was murdered on December 6, 1973, and upon hearing it well, I was more excited to finish the film.

I was expecting a hardcore drama, afterall it is a Peter Jackson film (his best known films are Lord of the Rings series and KingKong), flawless script and yes, justice at the conclusion of the film but none of it happened, and so, just like other people who expressed disappointments with the outcome of this film, me too was slightly frustrated.

The Lovely Bones retells a story of a young girl whose dreams and hopes for a bright future and whose excitement of having a first crush were cut-short drastically when at the age of 14 she was murdered by their neighbor, Mr. George Harvey, with motives I did not understand as his character as a psychopath or a murderer was never established until the credits finally shown. The film has a powerful casts: Mark Wahlberg plays Susie's father, Rachel Weisz plays her mother and Susan Sarandon as her eccentric grandmother, but the script did not do justice to their acting prowess.

It was a wonderful story if you try to look at it, you could just imagine the suspense how Susie was murdered and how her family struggled to locate her body which was locked in the vault and kept by Harvey at his house and how her parents exerted effort to seek justice, the beautiful narration by Susie herself which resonated wisdom, the after-life scenes and her soul's struggle to accept her death and how she finally let go of her pain to allow her family to move on with their lives, pumped excitement, thrill and warmth. But the development and progress of the film did not quite sets well with the logic the story tried to present. 

Saoirse Ronan plays Susie Salmon in the movie, The Lovely Bones

Most reviews say that this film concentrated more on creating visual effects, especially on the afterlife scenes, rather than on character development. It was a good movie material, but failed to justify each idea presented and its logic messed up at the finale. The only saving grace in the film is the way Susie narrated her story and how her family drifted apart trying to cope up with her loss and get back together. 

Towards the end, Susie explained that The Lovely Bones refers to the people who had helped her realized she was extremely precious and loved, people who inspired us and who gave her wisdom--her parents, her siblings and the girl who can see dead people (this girl let her body be used by Susie to be with the man Susie had fallen in love while still alive).

But the script is simply vague. I could not understand why Susie's sister, who was presented in the film as somewhat genius, did not give the strong evidence (Harvey's diary, which she got when she sneaked to his house and almost caught) to her parents and even to her grandmother to reopen the case. I could not understand also why Jackson allowed Harvey to safely leave the place, carried the vault where Susie's body was kept and thrown it somewhere. Harvey died in the end but the manner of his death was so funny that I found myself laughing.

I don't know but I found this film so illogical, futile and too many loopholes. Anyway just watch it for yourself.