'The Lovely Bones' Too Grim for Big-Screen Enjoyment

It’s the middle of the Christmas movie season, and you’re likely aiming to see escapist romps like “Sherlock Holmes” or family fare like “The Princess and the Frog.” Is anyone out there ready for a holiday film about the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the impact it has on her family?

Apparently Paramount Pictures thought it was a fine time to release “The Lovely Bones,” Oscar-winning writer-director Peter Jackson’s (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) first film since creating the vastly overblown remake of “King Kong” in 2005. Sure, it’s based on the novel by Alice Sebold, which has proven to be one of the decade’s biggest best-sellers, but considering how unpleasant and jarring much of the film is, it joins the list of works that suffer in translation from the page to the screen.

The time is 1973, and 14-year-old Susie Salmon (played by Saoirse Ronan, an Oscar nominee for “Atonement”) is an average suburban girl with a loving family who becomes the unwitting victim of rape and murder at the hands of a predatory yet seemingly gentle neighbor, Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci).

Sebold’s book sought to transcend its tragically lurid subject matter with a heavy dose of spirituality and hope that seemed to hit home upon its release in 2002, in the wake of 9/11. That coincidental appeal stemmed from the book’s idea that Susie spends much of the tale trapped in a limbo state, unable to fully embrace the happiness of heaven until her killer has been brought to justice and her family has managed to heal emotionally.

She’s able to see the havoc her tragic end has wrought on those who love her, and through a twist of fate is able to guide her father and others to clues that ultimately bring peace to all, including the other lost and forgotten victims of Mr. Harvey’s past. The concept is intriguing, and critics have hailed it as a modern classic, but readers had the option of putting the book down for a bit when events became too disturbing.

They also had the ability to bring their own interpretation of heaven and the limbo Susie hovers in while seeking final justice. But Jackson’s vision and his effects team, led by fellow “Rings” Oscar-winner Andrew Lesnie as director of photography, provide a series of jarring and overbearing surreal images to hammer home the afterlife journey Susie is going through. The sad and often disturbing imagery she’s surrounded with in the afterlife contrasts sharply with the naturalistic story of her family’s suburban life and winds up leaving the viewer with a stress headache until the final half-hour’s relatively positive events end the film with some warmth.

It’s a shame that Jackson’s script (co-written with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) and herky-jerky direction overwhelm the film, because it is centered on several fine performances. Ronan proves herself adept at handling a wide range of emotions, ranging from the sadness and terror she experiences with Mr. Harvey to the wonder of first love as she accepts a date just moments before her untimely demise. Mark Wahlberg also does a solid job as her father, who obsessively tries to find her killer even at the seeming expense of his marriage.

But the almost unrecognizable Stanley Tucci steals the show with his fully transformed performance as Mr. Harvey, perfectly capturing the kind of quiet loner who has proven to be a menace to society even as his neighbors thought he was a perfectly normal yet shy guy, from John Wayne Gacy to Ted Bundy to Jeffrey Dahmer.

In a press conference following a series of critics’ screenings, Jackson defended his vision for the film by noting that 20 different directors would have directed it 20 different ways and that a film adaptation of a book must stand first and foremost on its own as a film. While he should perhaps stick to fantasy epics like “Rings” rather than depictions of intimate family life in the future, he and Tucci should be commended in one major respect: they refused to show or allude to Susie’s rape in any way, leaving it to the viewers’ sad understanding that a young girl’s murder would likely include that heinous offense as well.

Angrily answering a reporter who questioned the fact that the film doesn’t depict Susie’s

rape, Jackson said he intended the film to be PG-13 so that it could serve as a cautionary tale for girls akin to his own 13-year-old daughter. He sadly noted that there’s plenty of places to see such sick behavior on the Internet but noted that he personally wouldn’t be part of providing imagery for the twisted imaginations of predators.

If only more directors would share that sense of restraint in depicting disturbing subject matter. And if only Paramount had chosen a bleaker time of year to match the film’s mood – say, Halloween – it would likely be a much bigger winner at the box office. As it stands, its grimness makes it hard to recommend anytime, but especially during a season of joy.