When it comes to home entertainment, I’m a tough critic. If the presentation isn’t nearly perfect or the special features aren’t that special, I’ll be the first to say so. In the rare instance where a Blu-Ray/DVD’s bonus content is superior to the film itself, however, I’m often at a bit of a stalemate. Do bonus features raise the grade of a release? In some cases they do, but in regards to Peter Jackson’s painfully flawed adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel The Lovely Bones, they most certainly do not.
The film’s narrative is somewhat unusual, and in his intro to the special features disc, director/co-writer Jackson states that his goal for the Blu-ray release was to conjure a similarly unorthodox method of delivering the extras. He succeeds in this endeavor by presenting a super-sized making-of documentary that follows the film’s production day by day (rather than a standard chronological behind-the-scenes look), giving the viewer an intimate look at the moviemaking process. While it’s a must-see for film school students, fans of Jackson’s work, and those interesting in seeing how much time, talent, money and coordination go into the filmmaking process, general audiences won’t make it past the first fifteen minutes, which is exactly how long into the feature it took me to realize that the Australian auteur had wandered a long way from Middle Earth.
First off, let me state that I haven’t read Sebold’s critically-hailed novel; I am judging Jackson’s film on its own without prior knowledge of how the characters are portrayed or how the narrative plays out in the book. That said, let me count the ways in which the film fails: foremost is a laughably terrible Mark Wahlberg, whose performance is so inauthentic he nearly kills the film from his very first appearance, as the father of murdered protagonist Susie Salmon (played eerily by the talented but artistically misguided Saoirse Ronan). Susan Sarandon is unsympathetic and useless as Grandma Lynn, a despicable character who pushes her family to move past the tragedy that is tearing them apart without addressing the needs of the individual, a tactic that does more damage than good, driving her grieving daughter Abigail (a wasted Rachel Weisz) away.
From what I DO know about the novel, the bulk of it focuses on Susie voyeuristically observing her family from the “in-between” as they cope with her death. Why, then, is there so much time spent with her prancing through the computer-generated purgatory when the most intense and interesting drama takes place back at the Salmon household? Because Jackson, as good as he is, is a visual filmmaker, and clearly unfit to carry the story’s heavy emotional baggage.
The one thing that The Lovely Bones has going for it is Stanley Tucci’s chilling turn as predator George Harvey. I can say with complete confidence that you’ve never seen him like this before, nor are you likely to again, despite an Academy Award nomination that would have been a victory if not for a certain inglourious basterd. If you are a fan of his, or are just looking to see an inspired performance, check out this release – you will be absolutely engrossed by his nervous ticks and creepy gestures. Otherwise, save yourself from more than two hours of melancholy madness.
