Alice Sebold's novel, "The Lovely Bones," showed skillful plotting in the fact that Susie Salmon was the narrator in a story of her own murder.
Moving it to the big screen was a foregone conclusion, and here it is, largely disappointing. Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens wrote the screenplay, and Peter Jackson directed, but it just does not hang together, held back by poorly focused writing and by acting that just does not stand out.
Saoirse Ronan is Susie ("yes, that's Salmon, like the fish," is her standard response to questioners), and she's excellent, her blue eyes calmly gazing at the supposed purgatory in which she is living. The after life, according to Jackson, is a happy, non-sectarian place where the residents seem in almost-constant contact with those they left behind.
But meanwhile, back on Earth, her father (Mark Wahlberg) and her mother (Rachel Weisz) are barely out of a post-funeral daze, and George Harvey (a really splendid Stanley Tucci) seems to be getting away with murder.
There are a couple of bright moments when Grandma, played to the nines by Susan Sarandon, shows up, but ultimately, "The Lovely Bones" proves to be anything but.
Opens today at several theaters
–Joe