The Lovely Bones...

.... not so lovely film.

I haven't read the book.  It hadn't crossed my path before I heard of the film.  By then I was hearing rumours of the film and the book being different and the ususal statements of the book's superiority.  My 'to read' pile is massive.  I didn't want to add something else to it so I decided to just see the film.  A rarity for me.  I much prefer to read a book first and get my own vision of the world created before I see someone else's.

I can't see myself ever reading the book.  The main ideas of the story just don't appeal to me.  The whole film wasn't really for me.  I don't believe in an in-between, an afterlife or anything else after death.  When I'm gone all that will be left of me will be memories.  No ghost, no presence, no Heaven, no Hell.

The cast in this film was pretty damn good.  Stanley Tucci is a personal favourite of mine.  His performance was pretty good, although he could have lost the Marlon Brando cotton wool in his cheeks.  He seemed to be portraying a sinister hamster at times.  Rachel Weisz' performance was great.  I really felt for her character, her pain seemed real.  Susan Sarandon stole the show when on screen and in a good way.  She is one hell of an attractive older lady!  Imperioli played his usual kinda thing but I like his thing.  The stand out for me was the younger sister.  Rose McIver is an actress I'll be watching in the future.  I thought her performance in this was the best thing in the film full stop.  Then we get to Mark Wahlberg....  Why was he cast, could no-one else see how limp he is?  He looks like he's taking the Michael.  Every scene he was in, even when he wasn't speaking, took me completely out of the film.  In the scenes shared with Weisz all I could see was the chasm between their acting skills.  I have only liked him in one film, The Departed.  I'm worried that if I see it again, I'll like his performance a lot less.  After this and The Happening he's enough to stop me seeing a film.

Some of the scenes in the In-Between were absolutely gorgeous.  They were stunning.  Unfortunately I felt I was looking ata  very pretty scene which to me didn't gel with the story I wanted to be carried on in the 'real world'.  I felt the film was too long, it dragged and the scenes with Susie were the main cause of that.  The voice-over began to grate after a while.  I left the cinema feeling guilty that I'd been irritated by a dead girl telling her and her family's story.  The guilt couldn't stop me being sick to the back teeth of her voice though.

I felt the film did well by skipping the obvious ending.  The fate of one character just seemed rather ridiculous to me though.  It didn't leave me satisfied with their outcome at all.  

Spoilers Below (rollover to view)

Well, the scene from Ghost they put in at the end.  That just really took the biscuit.  Unnecessary, saccharine and hell, it was pretty awful when they did it in Ghost.  Repeated 20 years later?  WTF???

It had it's good points but unfortunately too much tosh to let me really enjoy it.

3 out of 5 pawprints