First, before I write anything else, let me just say that, as a guy, I'm going to try my best to give a review for a film that really is targeted at women. More specifically, I think this film is targeted at young girls age 12-16, and at women with daughters or who wish they had daughters. I think that good communication, including books, film, music, photography, sculpture, or even Powerpoint presentations to corporate weasels, is built around the target audience. The target audience here isn't the Avatar crowd or the Fast and the Furious crowd or even the Lord of the Rings crowd. This film is targeted at the Thelma and Louise crowd and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants crowd and folks who spend hours making costumes for their daughter's part in the school play. And that's fine, everyone should have a voice at the local cinema.
So here's my best shot at a review for a film out of my particular ... um ... idiom?
The Lovely Bones is a story centered around a young girl who is viciously murdered by a psychopath. However, the movie isn't about that itself, in fact the film mercifully skirts around the harshness of that act. I was very afraid of what the great Monster Director, Peter Jackson, would do with that, and was greatly relieved when the film only eluded to it, but didn't show it outright. Violence against children is an abomination of the worst sort, and if the film reveled in it, I would not only have given the film a "1" but would have flown to New Zealand at great personal expense to kick his ass. As it was, watching a film essentially about pedophiles is creepy. I couldn't help but wonder how many of them were in the audience. Brrrrr, just got a chill there.
Anyway, what the film IS about is how a family recovers from a great tragedy. The point of view is that of the murdered girl herself as she hangs on in purgatory and watches the family ... and the killer ... carry on with their lives. She is caught in a world of allegory and symbolism, images from her life and the lives of others are juxtaposed with those from what her life might have been and what perceptions of heaven she might have. There's a lot of tricky business in there if you pay attention to it, but, like any film heavy on symbolism, The Lovely Bones overdoes it from time to time, occasionally with ridiculous results. This isn't as bad as the horrid "What Dreams May Come" (1998), but still can be trying for those not into that sort of thing.
That part of the film is the visually interesting part. The emotional part of the film revolves around the girl's reaction to her own death and the way she views the lives of her surviving family. She is a 14-year-old girl watching the destruction, reconstruction, and redemption of her family in the wake of a terrible tragedy. There are a lot of poignant and teary moments in this film, either direct or implied. There are also some fine bits of acting by Mark Wahlberg (as the bereaved father).
What's interesting here is the writing: they are trying to write from a 14-year-old viewpoint, which would not necessarily be mature, or broad, or accurate. This is not an insult against 14-year-olds, I've known a lot of intelligent 14-year-old girls, but regardless of intelligence, they do lack the depth and breadth that can only come from living a few years. The writers capture this well, in fact too well, which is why I think this film has received a lot of bad reviews on IMDb and elsewhere. This is the spirit of a kid talking. It may not always make sense. Remember there are plenty of intelligent 14-year-old girls who like the Jonas Brothers or Twilight. The heroine is bright but not omniscient or focused. Remember that when seeing this film.
So now I'm going to explain why I'm only giving this movie a 6. Being a PJ fan, I wanted to give it more, but this film has a lot of problems.
First, the film focuses on the dad (Wahlberg), but gives short-shrift to the mom (the normally outstanding Rachel Weisz). She does have some moments of grief and terror that would be expected, but they really relegated her to a supporting actor role, and that's a shame. This may also be in-line with 14-year-old thinking, in my own observations girls of that age tend to think of their father as their protector, and have less-than-friendly relations with their mother, so maybe it is wholly appropriate for this girl's focus to be on the father. But still, it's discouraging.
Then there's the over-the-top part of the grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon). This character is a caricature seen so often: boozing, smoking, unable to vacuum or do laundry, basically there for supposed comic relief and the big "talking to" moment in the end. I found it out of place, it really doesn't work at all in this film, and great parts of it should have hit the cutting room floor or been rewritten and reshot entirely.
There are also some plot points that don't work, some time syncing stuff that doesn't work (I couldn't figure out whether a week has passed or a year has passed or a month has passed), and there's one glaringly bad special effects moment that spells FAIL (shame on you, Weta Digital!).
All in all, I think The Lovely Bones as a film will end up just like the main character declares at the end, paraphrased as "we all eventually drift away, and life continues without us".
So here's my best shot at a review for a film out of my particular ... um ... idiom?
The Lovely Bones is a story centered around a young girl who is viciously murdered by a psychopath. However, the movie isn't about that itself, in fact the film mercifully skirts around the harshness of that act. I was very afraid of what the great Monster Director, Peter Jackson, would do with that, and was greatly relieved when the film only eluded to it, but didn't show it outright. Violence against children is an abomination of the worst sort, and if the film reveled in it, I would not only have given the film a "1" but would have flown to New Zealand at great personal expense to kick his ass. As it was, watching a film essentially about pedophiles is creepy. I couldn't help but wonder how many of them were in the audience. Brrrrr, just got a chill there.
Anyway, what the film IS about is how a family recovers from a great tragedy. The point of view is that of the murdered girl herself as she hangs on in purgatory and watches the family ... and the killer ... carry on with their lives. She is caught in a world of allegory and symbolism, images from her life and the lives of others are juxtaposed with those from what her life might have been and what perceptions of heaven she might have. There's a lot of tricky business in there if you pay attention to it, but, like any film heavy on symbolism, The Lovely Bones overdoes it from time to time, occasionally with ridiculous results. This isn't as bad as the horrid "What Dreams May Come" (1998), but still can be trying for those not into that sort of thing.
That part of the film is the visually interesting part. The emotional part of the film revolves around the girl's reaction to her own death and the way she views the lives of her surviving family. She is a 14-year-old girl watching the destruction, reconstruction, and redemption of her family in the wake of a terrible tragedy. There are a lot of poignant and teary moments in this film, either direct or implied. There are also some fine bits of acting by Mark Wahlberg (as the bereaved father).
What's interesting here is the writing: they are trying to write from a 14-year-old viewpoint, which would not necessarily be mature, or broad, or accurate. This is not an insult against 14-year-olds, I've known a lot of intelligent 14-year-old girls, but regardless of intelligence, they do lack the depth and breadth that can only come from living a few years. The writers capture this well, in fact too well, which is why I think this film has received a lot of bad reviews on IMDb and elsewhere. This is the spirit of a kid talking. It may not always make sense. Remember there are plenty of intelligent 14-year-old girls who like the Jonas Brothers or Twilight. The heroine is bright but not omniscient or focused. Remember that when seeing this film.
So now I'm going to explain why I'm only giving this movie a 6. Being a PJ fan, I wanted to give it more, but this film has a lot of problems.
First, the film focuses on the dad (Wahlberg), but gives short-shrift to the mom (the normally outstanding Rachel Weisz). She does have some moments of grief and terror that would be expected, but they really relegated her to a supporting actor role, and that's a shame. This may also be in-line with 14-year-old thinking, in my own observations girls of that age tend to think of their father as their protector, and have less-than-friendly relations with their mother, so maybe it is wholly appropriate for this girl's focus to be on the father. But still, it's discouraging.
Then there's the over-the-top part of the grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon). This character is a caricature seen so often: boozing, smoking, unable to vacuum or do laundry, basically there for supposed comic relief and the big "talking to" moment in the end. I found it out of place, it really doesn't work at all in this film, and great parts of it should have hit the cutting room floor or been rewritten and reshot entirely.
There are also some plot points that don't work, some time syncing stuff that doesn't work (I couldn't figure out whether a week has passed or a year has passed or a month has passed), and there's one glaringly bad special effects moment that spells FAIL (shame on you, Weta Digital!).
All in all, I think The Lovely Bones as a film will end up just like the main character declares at the end, paraphrased as "we all eventually drift away, and life continues without us".