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| Saoirse Ronan in an ugly getup finds a man lurking by the field on this creepy poster for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones |
Susie is a 14 year-old girl, who gets murdered by a neighbor in an underground cave. She then finds herself in a world between Earth and Heaven, as the search for her killer takes place in her native Kentucky.
The Lovely Bones is written by Fran Walsh (The Frighteners (1996)), Philippa Boyens (King Kong (2005)) and New-Zealander master co-writer/co-producer/director Peter Jackson (Dead Alive/Braindead (1992)), adapting Alice Sebold's (Lucky (1999)) same-titled 2002 novel.
The film has some grand CGI scenes of the 'between-world' that Susie finds herself in, which are incredibly handsome, and there are also suspenseful scenes, as well as Susan Sarandon (Robot & Frank (2012)) and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos (1999-07)) both giving ravishing performances.
But The Lovely Bones just isn't very profound in my opinion, and it's hard to tell if Jackson actually had ambitions beyond making something handsome here. Sebold's novel is likely difficult material to adapt, and Jackson just isn't enough of a serious-minded dramatic director to succeed with it. It obviously also weighs down that a young Saoirse Ronan (I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)) is cloyingly miscast in the lead part as Susie.
Related posts:
Peter Jackson: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) - Jackson's megalomania gives birth to the first third of an enormous fantasy whopper
The Frighteners (1996) - FX-driven ghost comedy madness
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) - Jackson's best film ever is a gore classic!
Bad Taste (1987) or, Peter Jackson's Hungry Aliens in New Zealand
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 65 mil. $
Box office: 93.6 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.44 times the cost)
[The Lovely Bones premiered 24 November (the UK) and runs 135 minutes. The rights for Sebold's novel were already sold, before it was finished. Scottish master filmmaker Lynne Ramsay was in talks to direct for a long time but was eventually detached for straying too far from the novel. Hot off his Lord of the Rings (2001; 02; 03) success, major studios were excited to back the huge-budgeted, commercially dubious, metaphysical crime drama. Shooting took place in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, and in Wellington, New Zealand from October 2007 - ?. SPOILER Jackson reshot the killer's death scene, after test screenings indicated that audiences wanted to see him suffer a lot more. According to LA Times an additional colossal 85 mil. $ were spent on the global marketing and distribution of the film, making its flop much more costly. The film opened #30 to a 116k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #3, behind holdover hit Avatar and newcomer The Book of Eli, and in 2,638 cinemas and grossed 44.1 mil. $ (47.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 9.3 mil. $ (9.9 %) and Japan with 6.8 mil. $ (7.3 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to two notches harder than this one. It was nominated for an Oscar: Best Supporting Actor (Stanley Tucci (Big Night (1996))), lost to Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, 2 BAFTAs and many other honors. Jackson returned with Universal ride short King Kong 360 3-D (2010) and theatrically with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). Mark Wahlberg (The Gambler (2014)) returned in Date Night (2010), Rachel Weisz (Chain Reaction (1996)) in The Whistleblower (2010) and Ronan with a voice performance in The Secret World of Arrietty/Kari-Qurashi no Arietti (2010) and in the flesh in The Way Back (2010). The Lovely Bones is rotten at 32 % with a 5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Lovely Bones?
