By Christopher Symonds
You’ve gotta give Peter Jackson his dues - well, he’s deservedly got quite a few of those this last decade - the man continues to tackle projects that most won’t go near. It’s one of his most endearing qualities as a director. Upon seeing Meet the Feebles in the mid-90s, I confidently proclaimed to all in earshot that this man would someday make it big. For once I was right. After turning one of the most ‘unfilmable’ book series into a classic trilogy, and taking on the not so small task of remaking a cinematic grail of a film (King Kong), Jackson turned his eyes toward an unexpected bestseller by the bold and unapologetic Alice Sebold.
Imagine pitching this as a potential project to a studio system that is becoming ever-fearful of veering anywhere off the sequel, remake, or marketed for every demographic that is our contemporary cinematic reality: A 14 year-old girl is lured, murdered, and dismembered by a neighbour. From a world somewhere between ours and heaven, she tries to come to grips with what’s happened to her, and how it affects the loved ones she’s left behind.
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All images copyright © 2009 DreamWorks SKG
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Forget about it, right? The project actually was optioned before Jackson got to it, and predictably didn’t get too far toward production in several years. But now that Jackson has conquered the film world, he is one of the very few who can pretty much make whatever he wants. So is this newest adaptation of his another feather in his impressive cap?
Sebold, more than any other author this reviewer has read in living memory, never pulls a punch. Her novel is a bestseller for a reason. The story of Susie Salmon is one of the most gut-wrenching and yet uplifting tales I have ever read. She gives you details of this girl’s experience that, whether a parent or not, will make you weep for her, and by the last page be okay with the knowledge that – murder or no – we all end, and we all must learn to let go.
Jackson’s adaptation has been accused by some of veering too far away from the story, but that is simply not the case. All adaptations from book to film involve excising that, for those who love the source material, makes it appear to be missing something. While this reviewer did not find the film version of the story as willing to go to Sebold’s shadow sides of the tale, it has to be said Jackson has stayed true to the story. Not in that waffling producer sense of ‘maintaining the essence, bla, bla, bla’ (hate it when they say that, and they all say that); I am talking main plot point to main plot point—the film doesn’t veer from the core story in the book. What happens there happens here.
What is excised does make the film differ from the book somewhat, and not for the better. While I completely agree with Jackson’s decision not to capture Sebold’s cringe-inducing detail of Susie’s murder, certain subplots, such as the Mother’s affair with the cop, and the aftermath of her murder for Ray, the boy she loved, reduce their effect on you from real people to supporting characters servicing the story’s message only. I would have gladly sat through another twenty minutes to allow them more depth.
Another thing that doesn’t translate well in this cinematic version is Jackson’s depiction of the in between world Susie inhabits, post her demise. The effects are stunningly beautiful, but Jackson veers a little too far into the abstract at times and overwhelms that visceral audience connection with Susie. Had he simplified or condensed his visual metaphors, that connection with her would have remained strong and the emotions for her all the richer for it.
The cast is a stunning collection of fine actors, but the film belongs to two people. Saoirse (pronounced seer-sha) Ronan and Stanley Tucci, as Susie and Mr. Harvey, her killer, respectably, capture these two characters beautifully. You love Susie the first moment you see her, and despise and revile Harvey the moment you see his face on that cornfield.
The pacing is almost note perfect - but for the above mentioned absences - you get some time with Susie before the event. The thriller aspects of the story are suitably tension-filled and fulfilling. The music, by Brian Eno no less, may be almost the perfect element of the film that captures the book’s shifting moods wholeheartedly.
Jackson’s cap is a feather fuller. The Lovely Bones as a film does not hold the punch of its source novel, but is affecting just the same. The film should be viewed on its own narrative, and Susie’s story in this medium does not disappoint. No adaptation can ever live up to its source, but perhaps we can learn from Susie herself, and embrace what is and let go of the rest.
Christopher Symonds
Frank Says:
January 22, 2010 at 10:20
More The Lovely Bones quotes:
"Holly said there was a wide, wide heaven beyond everything we knew; where there was no cornfield, no memory, no grave... but I wasn't looking beyond yet, I was still looking back. "
"My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie. I was fourteen years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973. I wasn't gone. I was alive in my own perfect world. But in my heart, I knew it wasn't perfect. My murderer still haunted me. My father had the pieces but he couldn't make them fit. I waited for justice but justice did not come. "
"I wasn't lost, or frozen, or gone... I was alive; I was alive in my own perfect world."
"was in the blue horizon between heaven and earth. The days were unchanging and every night I dream the same dream. The smell of damp earth. The scream no one heard. The sound of my heart beating like a hammer against cloth and I would hear them calling, the voices of the dead. I wanted to follow them to find a way out but I would always come back to the same door. And I was afraid. I knew if I went in there I would never come out. "
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