The Lovely Bones

UK Release: 19th February 2010

Watched on TV: Tuesday 16th/Wednesday 17th August 2011

Rating: 12A

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Thriller

Runtime: 2hrs 15mins

Tagline: The story of a life and everything that came after...

IMDb Plot Summary: A 14-year-old girl in suburban 1970's Pennsylvania is murdered by her neighbour. She tells the story from the place between Heaven and Earth, showing the lives of the people around her and how they have changed all while attempting to get someone to find her lost body.

My Review: Alice Sebold’s book is a hard act to follow. When I heard about this film being made I was excited as well as apprehensive, as with any book remake that I am a fan of (see One Day!). So sitting down to watch this at last after missing it in the Cinema few years ago I found that I needn’t have worried as The Lovely Bones is one of the few films were the film has done the book justice. There were a few alterations, but that made watching it even more fun and unpredictable. It was also great wondering about what was going to happen next and whether they’d kept my favourite bits in or not. Once I realised that they hadn’t ruined the book completely I began to try and look at the film separately, to see if it was any good on its own. I was helped by my mum who hadn’t read the book so I was able to get an outsiders view on many of the scenes. When things got to the scary bits I was ever so glad to know what was going to happen, but it didn’t make them any less scary! Mum kept saying “it’s alright for you, you know what’s going to happen!”.

But the best thing about the film, and indeed most books that are turned into films, is that you can pick up on the subtle things that are written about in the book and are there on the screen. And what made The Lovely Bones work so well was most definitely the performances from Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg and Susan Sarandon - Suzie’s family, about whom the book is mainly about. Stanley Tucci was unrecognisable as Suzie’s murderer and gave a creepiness to the role that I didn’t know Tucci had in him. And Suzie Salmon herself, Saoirse Ronan was pretty impressive too, if a little too angelic for my liking. 

The special effects guys had out done themselves, as they realised Suzie’s after life more beautifully than I ever imagined. 

The pacing to begin with was a little slow and it took about half an hour for the murder to actually happen, instead of it happening right at the beginning in the book, which I’d liked as it was more of a character study of those left behind and a hunt to bring her killer to justice. As Suzie herself says, “These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence. The connections, sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent, that happened after I was gone.” Magical.  

Score: 7.5/10