Susie watches with frustration as her murderer, Mr. Ray has a perfect alibi, but the rumors wreak havoc on his school life. She didn't get to read it when she was alive. He'd slipped it into her books the day before she died. Susie's schoolbooks and class notes are found, including a love letter from Ray Singh, Susie's first and only love. Later that day the police try digging up the cornfield, even though the snow and rain have screwed up their crime scene. The next morning, Jack breaks the news of the elbow bone to his other daughter, Lindsey, who's thirteen. From her heaven, Susie watches her parents in bed, unable to talk. On December 9, the detective in charge of Susie's case, Len Fenerman, calls Susie's mom and dad, Abigail and Jack Salmon, and tells them they've found Susie's elbow bone. Right now she's in heaven, which she soon learns is her personal heaven – everybody gets one when they die. She quickly learns this is a mistake, and he rapes and then kills her. He piques Susie's curiosity and lures her into the hole. He's built an underground shelter, with a door that's covered with earth. Harvey (who she recognizes but doesn't know) is in the cornfield. After school, Susie takes a shortcut through the cornfield to her suburban Pennsylvania home. She was fourteen years old when she was raped and murdered by her neighbor. Tucci slips into this costume with ease and adds just enough creepiness to a role that is mostly cliché.Meet our narrator, Susie "like the fish" Salmon (1.1). It’s no surprise that Rosie fixes on George as the likely killer, with his unconvincing comb-over and thick spectacles, he’s dressed in the classic Hollywood nutter outfit. She becomes more and more suspicious of the nerdy George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) and drives the latter parts of the real-world narrative to a pleasing climax. Rachel Weisz is given a lot less to work with, but crafts a believably distraught mother, weighed down by her husband’s inability to move on.Īn honourable mention also goes to Rose McIver as Susie’s younger sister. Mark Wahlberg puts in an accomplished turn as the destitute father, becoming increasingly desperate as the cops fail to locate his daughter’s killer. This leaves an immense burden on the actors and, thankfully, the core family members Susie leaves behind do an excellent job of salvaging the picture. The director’s incessant attempts to lighten the mood result in a blotchy film that frequently undercuts its most impressive passages. Her short montage of poor housekeeping and dodgy parenting would be equally at home in Meet The Fockers. Later on, Susan Sarandon’s kooky alcoholic grandma arrives to hold together the crumbling family unit. For the first ten minutes it’s a stunning vista, but as the general pointlessness of Susie’s voyeurism begins to grate, the lustre fades. Her pseudo-heaven is an ever-changing slideshow of Weta Digital concept art, complete with a giant floating rainbow ball and gazebos.
The film revolves around Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a 14-year-old girl murdered by her neighbour, who watches from the afterlife as her family struggle to deal with their loss. The difference is, while staring into a pool of impossibly shimmering water, we do not see wizards or orcs, but Mark Wahlberg and his 70s hair.įor his first full-length feature since King Kong, Jackson has chosen to adapt Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel, The Lovely Bones.
With her pale, narrow features and wide eyes, Saoirse Ronan looks distinctly elven, flitting about a CGI-dominated landscape that resembles a cross between Narnia and a Pink Floyd album cover. Periods of The Lovely Bones are like stumbling into Peter Jackson’s narcotic-tinged realisation of a fourth Lord Of The Rings film.