'The Lovely Bones' is an ugly mess

It's hard to believe that director Peter Jackson, who has shown such a deft hand both with intimate dramas (Heavenly Creatures) and special effects heavy adventures (The Lord Of The Rings) would stumble as badly as he does here with The Lovely Bones.

The film, based off the acclaimed and popular novel by Alice Sebold, is told from the perspective of murdered fourteen year old, who stuck somewhere between Earth and heaven, communicates with her loved ones to help them catch the killer. It's an intriguing premise, but the overly literal adaptation by Jackon's longtime writing team of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens completely miss the subtlety and tone required to give the film the emotional impact it needs.

In Roger Ebert's review, he opens by saying that its "a deplorable film with this message: If you're a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to. You can get together in heaven with the other teenage victims of the same killer, and gaze down in benevolence upon your family members as they mourn you and realize what a wonderful person you were. Sure, you miss your friends, but your fellow fatalities come dancing to greet you in a meadow of wildflowers, and how cool is that?" And while he might be exaggerating just slightly, he's not too far off the mark.

In the half hour we get to spend with Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) before her death, the audience is given an entry into her budding relationship with a high school senior and the anticipation she has a first kiss. However, after her murder, there is no weeping or reflection on Susie's part. Rather she practically skips through a highly digitized, brightly lit not-quite-heaven where she soon turns to trying to reach her family to help them play detective. And while the script does eventually circle back to the loss of her first kiss, the moment is lost and it feels like an afterthought.

But that is not the only tonal shift that doesn't quite work. Early in the film, Susie's brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) is found not breathing. Without her parents around, Susie finds the keys to her Dad's Mustang, throws her little brother in the backseat, and races to the hospital. For some inexplicable reason, this sequence, meant to depict the Salmon family's already close brush with death, is played as a comic routine with a pulsating rock score set to the supposed hilarity of Susie racing across the city trying to save her brother's life. Later in the film, we get another jarring montage sequence, where the pill-popping, alcoholic Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon) stepping into help out the grieving parents by flooding the washer, chain smoking and burning dinner.

In short, Jackson can never quite get a handle on the depths of the loss of innocence that the story contains. The picture veers wildly from police procedural to romantic fantasy to sober drama with very little at the core holding it together. At its worst the film feels like a strange hybrid of Ghost and Beetlejuice, and if that seems excessively mean, just stick around for the climax (that won't be spoiled here) that if it doesn't leave jaw on the floor from incredulity, will have you in the aisles laughing.

The Lovely Bones is a surprisingly large misfire from a director who has had an incredible run of success and fans of the book (and everyone else) are best advised to stay away.