Unreal Movie Review: The Lovely Bones

It’s not easy for a director to change genres this drastically. For Peter Jackson to go from King Kong and Lord of the Rings to The Lovely Bones would seem to be equivalent to Michael Bay directing Synecdoche, New York. I’m willing to forgive him a little bit for this jarring of a transition, but good lord, The Lovely Bones is without a doubt the worst movie I’ve seen this year.

Based on a national bestseller by Alice Seybold, the book follows a young girl murdered by a brutal neighbor, but instead of passing quietly into the afterlife, she hangs around in purgatory, observing her family desperately try to solve her murder.

It’s hard to always tell just who to blame in any particular scene for the awfulness you’re witnessing. Is it Peter Jackson, for his sloppy cuts and acid-trippy rendition of the afterlife? Is it Mark Wahlberg, for apparently Googling the term “sad” so he can understand how to try and emulate such an emotion? Or is it the author, Seybold, for writing a story filled with some of the dumbest human beings alive, and throwing all semblance of logic down a bottomless sinkhole? I think it’s a little bit of all of them, and the movie is so epically bad that there is plenty of blame to go around.

We’ll start with Jackson, who is no stranger to grandiose landscapes and otherworldly lands. Therefore, you would imagine that he would be able to capture a stunning rendition of the heaven and hellishness that makes up purgatory, but rather what we have instead is a series of “surreal landscape” desktop wallpapers set to motion, with the occasional giant metaphorical boat or penguin dropped in to remind us we’re in “Susie’s” heaven.

What Dreams May Come had a much more visually impressive and creative interpretation of the afterlife, and that was over ten damn years go,

After watching the film, it becomes abundantly clear that the premise the entire book is based around, a girl solving her murder from the grave, is chronically stupid, seeing as after her death, Susie does absolutely nothing other than alternate between playing dress-up with other heaven-bound murder victims and occasionally yelling at her family as they bumble around trying to solve her case with the finesse of a steamroller. I thought that her ghostliness would allow her to pop up and help out with clues from time to time, but the most she is ever able to manage is to make a candle flicker strangely or make a dead rose bloom for half a second.

It’s not a good sign when your main character is completely useless in the film, and is only utilized to provide a constant recap of what’s happening onscreen, which makes The Lovely Bones possibly the most narrated film ever made. Even though Susie’s told by a fellow ghost that at any given moment, she’s allowed to head on up to heaven, she insists on staying in purgatory to scream pointlessly at her family and be haunted by her murderer who is still lurking around in her subconscious. What does she think the end game is here? If she runs around this dreamworld long enough she’ll earn enough frequent flier miles to head down to earth and get her body back?

Back in real life, her family of complete morons tries to solve her case by the way they best know how, guessing. The evidence against her actual killer, Mr. Harvey from down the street, is non-existent, but her sister and father interpret their dog barking at him, his creepy mustache, and a slight smile her father happens to remember him showing when she was nearby over a year ago as empirical proof that he is indeed a twisted pedophile and must be beaten to death with a baseball bat.

“Should I kill him with this bat? Probably not, but AHH THAT MUSTACHE!”

It’s astonishing how bad the plot of this movie is. Solving the mystery of your own death post-mortem sounds like a cool concept, but when you’re stuck in a living screensaver with no ability to help anyone still alive do anything, and your family runs around pointing fingers at anyone who looks at them funny, it’s not in the least bit interesting. Hell, there’s not even a mystery in all this. We know who the killer is the entire time, so the only thing you’re waiting for is how the rest of the world finds out and how justice is served. Ghost justice!

I’m skipping over an equally ridiculous subplot that involves one girl who can magically see ghosts (an explanation of this is never once attempted), and Susie’s high school crush, who is an English Indian boy who falls in love with her the day of her murder despite the fact they’ve never actually spoken before. These two characters end up dating, presumably so they can eventually have children who also have incredibly questionable character motivations. Any more elaboration on either of these two will only make me start yelling uncontrollably.

I thought the entire conversation in this “love professing” scene was a dream sequence because it was THAT unrealistic.

Saoirse Ronan is adorable with her brilliant blue eyes, bless her heart, but after two hours of constant narration about life and love and moving on, I wanted to lock Susie Salmon in an underground abduction cellar myself. A soundproof one. Ronan is just too over the top with her spunk and wonderment, and combining that with her character being fully useless in the film, I just can’t say this is a breakout role for the young actress.

Equally disappointing is Mark Wahlberg, who has now fully convinced me that he is in fact a terrible, terrible actor. I feel like this wasn’t always the case, but the man is in full The Happening mode once again, and nearly nothing he says in the film is remotely believable. It’s like he’s got some sort of degenerative disease that’s making him forget what acting is, and the man is now capable of only playing the shells of characters rather than an actual lead.

I was just absolutely stunned by how truly awful this movie is. I heard it wasn’t the greatest, but the sheer badness of it on nearly every level floored me, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this is my least favorite movie of the year, and it may even have a place in my all-time worst list.

Everyone involved in this project just wash your hands and move on. I fully believe you’re all very talented, so just turn around, start walking and never speak of this atrocity again.

1 out of 5 stars

HE DID IT! JUST LOOK AT HIM!