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Moving and disturbing film adaptation of The Lovely Bones
I READ The Lovely Bones after enjoying (although that is perhaps the wrong word) Alice Sebold's other novel Lucky.
When I heard the film was coming out I thought I had to see it, to see what it was like, how it was different, and, well, to have a bit of a cry.
The Lovely Bones tells the sad story of Susie Salmon who is raped and murdered (although only murdered in the film), who then watches from the 'blue belt' as her family struggle to come to terms with her murder.
Click here for The Lovely bones trailer
14-year-old Susie (the incredible Saoirse Ronan) lives with her mum and dad (Rachel Weisz and Mark Walhberg), sister Lindsay (Rose McIver), brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) and their dog Holiday.
Susie has just secured herself a date with the object of her affectsions Ray, when, on the way home from school on December 6, 1973, she takes a short cut through the corn fields and runs into neighbour George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) who shows her a hut he has built underground, and then murders her.
Susie is then trapped in the blue belt - between life and heaven - and she watches as her father tries to find her murderer.
She sees her mother Abigail having to leave Pennsylvania to work on a winery to get away from the pain of losing Susie, and she watches as her sister grows up and get to do all the things she never will.
Abigail's mum Lynn (Susan Sarandon) moves in to offer her help, and she is the only bit of light relief in the film with her penchant for drinking and smoking.
But then Susie realises that her family can only truly get on with their lives when she lets them, and moves onto the "larger" heaven as she calls it.
This film is an incredibly moving film that did everything it was suppose to. It didn't stick 100 per cent to the book, but in this case I think it actually worked better the way it was done in the film, than if they had stuck rigidly to the novel.
The film doesn't show you Susie being raped or murdered - it leaves it to the imagination, and I think it was a good choice to do that. In the book it is very graphic, but the film tells you what it needs to - this man killed her. It's about what happens afterwards that is important and I think that is why it was a good choice to leave it out.
This has been a film that is a long time in the making and is worth a watch - it is disturbing and moving in equal measures and will have you squirming, laughing, but mainly crying.
The version of the blue belt is really cleverly done in my opinion, it isn't forcing any religious message - and I found the scene with the ships in the bottles smashing against the rocks particularly moving.
Saoirse Ronan is amazing as Susie, showing what a powerful presence she can have at such a young age, Stanley Tucci played the eerie and frightening Mr Harvey perfectly, and Mark Wahlberg was incredibly moving as the grieving father desperately trying to find answers.
Click here for The Lovely Bones showtimes at Odeon Silverlink
This film won't appeal to everyone, but I found it deeply moving, and it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book at all.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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