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a different sort of heavenly creature
Jan. 14th, 2010 02:48 pmProbably the best thing about Peter Jackson's film of The Lovely Creatures is Saoirse Rionan's face; long scenes in the movie are designed around her reactions to what she's seeing, and even when she- and Jackson- don't seem sure as to exactly what her character would be feeling in response to a given incident, she holds the camera effortlessly. Too, Stanley Tucci does well with what he's given, even though I wanted to see him feel more conflicted about what he's doing- to have more of an interior life. By contrast, Mark Walhberg and Rachel Weisz do extremely by-the-numbers work as the parents, although they've both done excellent work elsewhere1 (and to be fair to Walhberg, he was a last-minute replacement for Ryan Gosling). The Lovely Bones, which deals with the aftermath of a child's murder, was an interesting choice of material for Jackson, but it has the feel of an incompletely worked out adaptation, where the director seems to be spending most of his time designed elaborate sequences set in the afterlife (think Heavenly Creatures with a larger budget), rather than giving the body of the movie a real dramatic resonance.
As it is, The Lovely Bones tells two stories: a family reaction to a child's murder, and various characters' pursuit of the murderer, all interspersed with the murder victim watching all this from heaven, offering narration that sounds as though it had been drafted for American Beauty. The two stories don't feel emotionally connected, even though they involve many of the same characters; we're left watching awkwardly staged and written scenes (at one point, Weisz's character leaves the family to become a fruit picker, seemingly for no better reason than that it says in the book that she does so), along with by-the-numbers suspense scenes involving the hunt for the murderer. The Lovely Bones, in the end, is a frustrating, insufficiently conceived movie, albeit one from a major film-making talent.
1I don't know what to say about Susan Sarandon as the grandmother, most of whose scenes seem to have been designed in a misguided attempt at comic relief; it feels as though Sarandon is trying to channel Bea Arthur, and not quite succeeding.
As it is, The Lovely Bones tells two stories: a family reaction to a child's murder, and various characters' pursuit of the murderer, all interspersed with the murder victim watching all this from heaven, offering narration that sounds as though it had been drafted for American Beauty. The two stories don't feel emotionally connected, even though they involve many of the same characters; we're left watching awkwardly staged and written scenes (at one point, Weisz's character leaves the family to become a fruit picker, seemingly for no better reason than that it says in the book that she does so), along with by-the-numbers suspense scenes involving the hunt for the murderer. The Lovely Bones, in the end, is a frustrating, insufficiently conceived movie, albeit one from a major film-making talent.
1I don't know what to say about Susan Sarandon as the grandmother, most of whose scenes seem to have been designed in a misguided attempt at comic relief; it feels as though Sarandon is trying to channel Bea Arthur, and not quite succeeding.
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