The Lovely Bones - film

Hey my 3 followers, sorry I haven't posted in a while, holidays happened, my first overseas flight by myself (don't laugh, I am not the best flyer) and then a lot of sitting around on the couch on my week off work.

One movie I finally managed to watch was the Lovely Bones. I just never got around to seeing it at the cinema which was odd because it is one of my favourite books.

In my book review I questioned the choice of Marky Mark (Wahlberg) to play the dad. At the time it was going to be Ryan Gosling which I now realise that while he is a better actor, that also would have been the wrong decision as he is too young for that role. While I'm still not entirely sold on Wahlberg being a great actor (have you seen The Happening? Scratch that, Zooey Deschanel was also terrible) he is serviceable in this.

Clearly though the show belongs to Saoirse Ronan who plays Susie, the girl who is murdered. I think she does very well, clearly she has proved herself in Atonement and is great at displaying all the emotional scenes.

A couple of things:

• While Susie did look like she was 14 (Ronan is 16), the character of Ray looked quite a bit older (24 in real life) and I found their kiss scene a bit pervish. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I am just glad they didn't make it a sex scene as in the book.
• As in the movie adaptation of Jaws, they left out an affair (between Chief Brody's wife and Matt Hooper character if anyone's interested). Susie's mother and the detective handling her murder case had an affair in the book and it just wouldn't have worked in the movie. They didn't develop the character of the detective enough for it to make sense as they did in the book. As it was, I don't think the film handled the characterisation of the mother well, it seemed quite abrupt that she left, but as in the book she was not a really likable character.
• Stanley Tucci was excellent at the killer (George Harvey), suitably creepy but not overly so.
• Peter Jackson as director was criticised for not including the rape or death scene, I think unfairly so. I don't think it would have added anything to the film, it was never a movie that focused on searching and getting revenge on the killer but rather Susie and her family letting each other go and the effect her death has.
• I thought Harvey's death was a little lame. Of course test audiences would want a brutal ending for a killer, nothing left to the imagination.
• While I love Susan Sarandon, I thought she didn't have much of a role and this could have been explored further.
• Being an animal lover and a bit of a sap about them in general, I quite liked in the book when she is reunited with her dog after years of watching her family. No dogs in the film. Thumbs down.
• Finally the film was always destined for failure in my eyes, it was never going to live up to the book no matter how much CGI was thrown at it. But you know points for effort.