I loved The Lovely Bones and I don’t care what the critics say, it was a great movie.
The casting was pretty good. Saoirse Ronan did a really good job as Susie Salmon. It wouldn’t seem like playing a dead girl would be that difficult, but she captured the (alive) happy-go-lucky Susie and the melancholy, confused (dead) Susie. Susan Sarandon was perfect for the role of pill-popping, borderline alcoholic Grandma Lynn. And who knew that Stanley Tucci was the perfect serial killer? His performance and appearance were so different from any other movie he has done that it was easy to forget any image viewers may have of him. Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Michael Imperioli round out the rest of the cast as Susie’s parents and the police investigator assigned to the case.
The special effects in the movie were wonderful. Majority of the special effects were used during the scenes when Susie is in her heaven. They weren’t too overdone and fake looking. It actually kind of visually reminded me of Taylor Swift’s music video “Fifteen.”
This movie was one of the better book-to-screen adaptations I have seen. I haven’t read the book in awhile, but it seems like the movie stayed pretty true to the book. I can only think of one subplot in the book that was left out (which I won’t reveal). The one complaint I had with the screenplay was that the film was resolved a lot faster than I think it was in the book. For the purpose of time, I’m sure that Peter Jackson just escalated the ending much faster. Overall, I don’t think any of the changes made will anger fans of the book.
What did you think of The Lovely Bones?
