FILM REVIEW
Before proceeding into this piece, take into account that an incredible influx of aggressive teenage girls and middle-age fans alike forced me to wiggle my way into a much-avoided front row seat for my viewing pleasure.
Attempting to make the experience tolerable, I squiggled my way down into the plush chair so my head was at a decent angle where the gigantic screen didn’t make me want to puke, and/or go blind from all the overwhelming and indistinguishable movement.
“The Lovely Bones” adapts a 2004 novel by Alice Sebold of which I never read but was aware (because I’d see its pages being excitedly flipped by every single girly-girl in my high school but me).
The plot of ‘Bones’ centers on a 14-year-old girl who has been ghastly murdered in the ‘70s. She views her family post-death from purgatory, and the film explores major themes of acceptance and justice.
Luckily for the film, the cast churned out enough charisma to quasi-curb the unrealistic qualities of this pseudo-fantasy. Susan Sarandon plays rogue, chain-smoking grandma Lynn whose eccentric love trickles into your heart, while Mark Wahlberg perfectly portrays the committed father role.
The brilliant Rachel Weisz’s role as “dead girl’s mommy” unfortunately belittled her acting ability (if you’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain,” then you get what I mean). However, she managed to work with what she was given and delivered a consistently solid character.
Stanley Tucci masterfully plays the creepy kid butcher — perhaps the most interesting character of all — although I fear he won’t be able to shake the pedophile title when I go back for a second viewing of “Julie and Julia.”
Saoirse Ronan plays the star of the movie, Susie Salmon, delivering a killer performance of a refreshingly and unconventionally beautiful young woman reminiscent of Chloë Sevigny. I expect we’ll see great things from this chick in the future.
The first 30 minutes or so were absent of director Peter Jackson’s CGI fetish, but the second that reality window had closed, an explosion of in-your-face computer generated imagery flooded the screen with picturesque visuals of heaven that stripped any seriousness the film tried to elicit away.
The rest of the film tended to channel a bad episode of “Touched by an Angel” and had me begging for the end.
I almost felt embarrassed for the actors, who were trying their hardest to get the viewer emotionally involved with heavy content, but because of Jackson’s ridiculous execution, the crowd was actually laughing by the end. Let’s just hope Marky Mark can make his fans ignore this one.
Advice, unless you’re 14 years old and like swirls of heavenly colors or have read the book and feel the need to witness some incredible debauchery, please don’t waste your money, folks.
