Buy The Lovely Bones [Blu-ray]

So I wrote a review of this film the night I first saw it at a sneak preview here in Portland, Oregon on January 12, 2010. Unfortunately, I had written it directly into a text box, and never saved it along the way. So my review is lost for now. However, I did purchase the DVD and anticipate a final summation of the film, separate from the book at some point.

I believe that Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is one of the most remarkable stories and also one of the greatest publishing feats in my lifetime. 40,0000,000 copies sold well before the film even went into production. The novel has been translated into 28 language. It sat ON the NY Times TOP TEN fiction seller's list for 54 weeks straight. That's more than a year! No one accomplishes that these days... not even Stephen King or other pop fiction writers. With no doubt, Sebold's novel will remain within my top 10 reading experiences ever. Please go out and buy it. In the meantime, based on the sneak preview in Portland, our film critic, Shawn Levy, a much heralded film critic across this country, shared his insights into the FILM in our state newspaper the very next day; he stressed he had never read the book.

I am chiming in here by sharing the letter I wrote for publication in "The Oregonian" a day after Levy's review hit the stands. I hope for those of you who have read the book or have seen the movie - but not both - that my letter helps to draw some distinguishing facts about this DVD, the history behind production and how I'm still on this horrible fence trying to turn something I'm frustrated by into something definitively more OR less meaningful to me.

I feel privileged to have Mr. Levy living in my city. He understood key themes and managed to fill in gaps in the film based on his intuition, intelligence and his keen eye for knowing when a scene has ended up on the cutting room floor, even though he never read the book.

"Mr. Levy's Take on 'The Lovely Bones'"
Levy fan, here, for years. BUT, the film is rated PG13, not R - which weighs HUGE significance in what ended up on screen and what was omitted. I'm happy to have come across Levy's review, which is by his admittance, a review of the film and that he is unfamiliar with the source material of Alice Sebold's immeasurably successful novel. Some books are meant to stay just that; books. Brave Jackson took on the adaptation, but the film does not stand on its own. It tries, desperately to rush everything from the book onto the screen with a rather embarrassing lack of confidence, fluidity or true closure. I followed everything I could about the production of the film. Too many hands in a cookie jar. Too many compromises. For the average viewer not familiar with the book, I'll assume very few will see it for what Jackson haphazardly tried to message (though Levy surprisingly culled out what must have been left on the cutting room floor as he pieced it together and for the most part, was correct!).

First, it's a fable, folks. If not seen in that light, the viewer won't walk away with even part of what the novel accomplished. The film captures a time and place that is resonant for any parent in suburban 1970's or children who grew up at that time, too. The most commonly misconstrued notion of this story is that it's all about a serial pedophile. In fact, the book is steeped in the culture of sex in the 70's. The characters are drawn from a time and place in our country where households became more and more insular after the radical 60's. Families held many secrets from one another, and often lived two lives (how about those car-key swapping swingers parties and then taking the children to church on Sunday?). The plot keenly captures the politics and dynamics of a family and a community, deepened and fully disclosed through the naiveté of the story's protagonist, an innocent 14-year old girl who is brutally raped and murdered within 10 minutes of the start of the film (or a few pages into the novel).

Over the proceeding years, she watches over her family as it splinters and mends and becomes something she first does not try to understand, then resists when her loved ones change over time and she isn't, and finally only when she accepts the fate that rests within each and every other character does she obtain closure. How universal are those themes?!? Jackson's filing down of the story to an "emotional thriller" (his words) -- "with supernatural elements" (again, his words during production) -- is appalling. His interpretation would have been fine... had he not continued to flush what he brought to the screen with his poor pick-and-choose methodology of the source material, perhaps he could have made something of his own. I think of screen adaptations where a director and screenwriter achieve greatness from a book that was less than extraordinary. Think the horrid, flat novel "Fried Green Tomatoes". Now think: How did the movie nail everything quite perfectly when the source material was so poorly written that they really aren't comparable? Same can be said for Rick Moody's excellent book "The Ice Storm" when the adaptation took the story miles away in terms of real impact for the film viewer. Jackson failed in his mission, and ironically did so after desperately trying to faithfully translate the novel to screen. This film was in the can and ready for a December 2008 release. Much tinkering, debate and ego bruising in Hollywood saw this film remain in the editing room for another 13 MONTHS before it finally hit screens. Come on. The more hands on anything simply dilutes the final delivery of the finished "product.

BTW, Heaven, Mr. Levy, is not to be confused by 40 million readers who commonly identified -- through language, life, geography, culture, religion and spirituality, with the "In Between". Hence, the power of "The Lovely Bones." [END]

So there you have. My review would actually point out the following:

Hugh Jackman didn't bite at playing the father which is great, but I wish they had stuck with Ryan Gosling in the role during preliminary shooting instead of mutually agreeing he was too young looking for the part. (Hello, can't that be said for every single film Leonardo DiCaprio EVER has made????). Heck, Rachel Weisz' part is so walk-through, they should have fired her and found Ryan a match (which they originally had been considering Helen Hunt as the mother). Bringing Walberg in? Wow. You could tell that actor that everyone in his family drop dead of simultaneous brain explosions and he'd still look like someone splattered menthol on his eye lashes to make him "cry". His performance was so uneven, it was embarrassing. Stanley Tucci was brave to take on the role of a pedophile killer, but did so to create one of the most memorable (if creepy) characters on screen in the past year or more. Saiorse Ronan was BORN to play the part of Susie Salmon. I cannot imagine any young adult actress who could have pulled off what she commanded. Watch her facial ticks and listen to her vocal tonations, match your ears to the cadence of her voice, and how she can express 20 different emotions within a three minute scene, and do so without uttering an actual word. Just shifts in her body, her eyes, her stance, the wisping away of a hair in her eyesight, her flinch or uncertainty. Her total lack of being comfortable where she is. No "child" actor has pulled off such range since Haley Joel Osment starred in "The Sixth Sense". Susan Saradon played a stock character, but at least wasn't too cloyingly boring. Picking an actress who in real life is actually is SIX years older than Ronan to play her "younger" sister... uh, I can't even go there, though I enjoyed seeing Rose McIver in a larger part of a major movie.

Then there were the scenes literally dropped to the editing room floor that were very key in understanding motivations, background characterization and a more dense, yet explainable story on film. Parts dropped I will not go into detail here and spoil the novel. But Rachel Weisz, Michael Imperioli, the character of Ray Singh's completely missing mother, Ruana, and actress Carolyn Dando's role... they ALL were substantial to the storyline. They should have been included or left in. They connect such significant plot lines.

See, here's the takeaway. Jackson didn't own his own story. His choices in what was left out versus in, the poor manipulation of Sebold's time line and attempting to create THREE different endings (and USE THEM ALL!!?!??), rather than use the expertise of Sebold's wonderfully closed ending were all just bad decisions. I'd still rate the movie 3 stars since the rest of the crap on our t.v. and theater screens sucks far more than this failed attempt at retelling the contents of Sebold's dense, real and surreal novel. Oh, and for every review I see on here where people gripe about "Heaven" or "Pedophile" or "Boring" or "I just didn't GET it" or too many "CGI" effects, read the novel since you clearly didn't understand what was presented to you or why. Not necessarily your fault, but criticizing something that collectively is cohesive for many others, well, that's odd. It is not "Heaven" it is the "In Between" and if you don't like character driven movies that don't end in explosions everywhere or really sophomoric humor, then don't pick a DRAMA and then pee all over it. Wow.Get more detail about The Lovely Bones [Blu-ray].