The Lovely Bones

Let me first start out by saying I have never read the book, nor did I know anything about the book (or movie) going into my viewing of the film.

I have heard grumblings of true fans of the book that the movie doesn't quite live up to the original story. Well, that is why I never read the book before the movie - with the possible exception of Where the Wild Things Are once I finally get a chance to watch it. But, I think I will be pretty safe in knowing that the book and movie will be a little different.

Anyway, The Lovely Bones (as a movie alone) was pretty decent. I thought that the story itself was very good and the performances were stellar.

I was especially enamored with the performance of Saoirse Ronan, who played Susie Salmon. She did a pretty wonderful job for someone I had never heard of, nor seen any of her work previous. And her eyes were amazing - perfect for this type of role.

The other standout was Stanley Tucci as George Harvey. Just a great and creepy performance from him.

The story follows young Susie Salmon, a high school student and budding photographer, who is sort of coming of age, and is asked out by her boy crush for the first time.

On her way home from school one day (the next few parts could be considered spoilers, but the movie shows everything so the viewer knows this information - up to you if you want to read it) and meets up with George Harvey in a corn field. Harvey has built an underground fort 'for the kids' and asks Susie to look at it with him. At first it seems pretty innocent - to her - but she slowly starts to get uncomfortable and tries to leave. But, George has no intentions of letting her leave - he built this fort to kill her.

The rest of the movie has some good and some bad parts. I really felt the "purgatory" that Susie is in was very over the top - although it was beautiful to look at.

The great part is the rest of her family. Her father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), will stop at nothing to find out what happened to his daughter. I sort of relate the most to Jack as a father, because I feel I would act the exact same way as he did. Susie's sister, Lindsey (Rose McIver), also plays Sherlock Holmes, especially after getting a strange feeling about Mr. Harvey.

That leads me to the ending, which I thought was very odd and not exactly what I was hoping for as an ending. Again, I am not sure if this was by the book or something the filmmakers did on their own - but I was hoping for a better ending.

On the story and the performances I recommend the film. I could have done without the 'purgatory'-like state - and as often as it is used. Plus, a better ending would have lifted the grade for me.

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