To all those critics out there, The Lovely Bones (2009) is NOT THAT BAD! I honestly can't see why people hate it so much. For starters, that young 14 year old girl was murdered! That is pretty much an Oscar winning story-line right there. The movie is stunning, captivating and has good performances throughout it, and is possibly one of the better films of 2009. Even better then Avatar.
So, you have probably read the book, which I'm getting around to. The story revolves around Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a young teenager who is murdered by her neighbour Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci, who I could barely recognize). She watches her family and everyone she knew on Earth from the 'in-between', which is between life and heaven. Her family struggles to cope with the loss, as her father (Mark Wahlberg) consistently tries to find out who the killer is, along with her sister Lindsey (Rose McIver). Her mother (Rachel Weisz), however, tries to let her death go, but doesn't benefit from the help of Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon).
The Lovely Bones takes a disturbing look at life and the crazy mind of Mr. Harvey, yet it has some well-placed happy moments. Saoirse Ronan completely embodies the role of Susie, using all of her talent to play a ghost who's afraid to let go of life. Two other stand-out performances were those from Tucci and Wahlberg.
The atmosphere created for this film was great, and kudos to the designers of the in-between and heaven. Peter Jackson is the best thing to come out of New Zealand, and his talents aren't just reserved for Lord of the Rings. This movie is great, just ignore what the critics think about it.
9/10
Okay, I swear this'll be my last spam-comment for a while, but thank god someone likes this film. I totally didn't understand why critics didn't like The Lovely Bones(of course critics have gotten it wrong on many occassions - that's why I only judge films until i've watched them) but having read the book at least a few months before the film came out (and not raving about it as everyone else had, it kind of turned into a soap opera after the excellent 50 first pages)I seriously fell in love with Peter Jackson's version, and for once, Mark Walhberg was good in something.
ReplyDeleteCritics definitely got it off the mark that time round, and for something like Twilight: Eclipse to get a better rottentomatoes rating, really? Has the world ended? (One of the reasons I refrain from ever going on rottentomatoes.com again)
Okay, I'm over a year late to this post but it showed up in the 'You may also like' boxes:
ReplyDeleteI adored this film! Peter Jackson crafted a masterpiece. I haven't read the book, but from what I could tell the main objections I was hearing were that it was too different from the book and the CGI was too much....I thought the CGI was beautiful and the performances were brilliant!! My friend sobbed the entire way through the film.