A murder mystery.
This concept seems unoriginal. It feels like once you’ve seen one, you have seen them all.
“The Lovely Bones” took that basic concept and added a spin to it that changed the very core of “the murder mystery.”
This movie will intrigue you and keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
The movie follows the story of 14-year old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a girl raped and murdered by her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci).
Throughout the film, we see Susie’s journey, as well as her family’s, to find the man who killed her and gain peace from the ordeal. While most of the movie separates Susie’s world from the world of the living, the two converge occasionally to show the true love between a girl and her family.
Ronan portrays Susie extremely well in both times of child-like happiness and complete desperation. She is carefree at the beginning of the movie and you can see how normal and happy her family is. After her death, it is evident that her family is torn apart. She cannot go to heaven until she has found peace with them.
Tucci, who plays George Harvey, has created a face that I will always match with the word “pedophile.” He was creepy to the point of making me afraid of men with mustaches and glasses and was one of the best actors in this film.
In a film about a dead girl, you wouldn’t expect humor. But Susan Sarandon, playing Grandma Lynn, made me laugh every time she was onscreen. She was the one consistent voice of comedy and reason, and lightened the dark mood of the movie.
I found the special effects, mostly of heaven and “the in between place,” distracting and even unsettling at times. The portrayal of these places were creative, but ended up taking away from Susie’s story. They could have left the scenery simpler and gotten the point across more effectivly.
On the other hand, the cinematography of “the real world” was fantastic. It not only set the mood, but was very realistic. You could see the undertones of unrest after Susie’s death through the scenery and lighting.
The two best devices used in the movie were foreshadowing and suspense. At first, none of the signs presented in the movie are obvious, but when you find out their significance later, it contributes to the “aha!” factor that makes you understand the parts that had once seemed meaningless.
The suspense was what truly made the movie. There were parts where I was gripping my friend’s hand and mumbling incoherently because of how realistic the most intense parts of the film are. Although there is no graphic scene when Harvey rapes and kills Susie, the suspense is makes up for the lack of violence.
All in all, this movie was a good example of a murder mystery trying to break out of the pack, but not an extremely good movie. I’d wait until it comes out on DVD and not spend the eight bucks.