The Lovely Bones

Susie Salmon is 14 and with a lifetime ahead, but one day she is brutally murdered. From her heaven, Susie will observe how the pain gradually destroys little by little her family, while the murderer goes unpunished and ready to act again. Susie must choose between her thirst for revenge and the recovering of her family.

Someone said it's hard to kill someone; you do not take away only what he or she is, but all someone could be. It was not just Susie Salmon’s life to be taken away, but her future and that of all those who loved her; stripping her of experiences that she will never live, moments she will never enjoy, people she will never met.

With the story of Susie, this dead and lost girl, Peter Jackson is giving  proof he can do other film,s trying to change that image of pyrotechnic director he had encouraged.

So Jackson starts off with a minimalist, demure and effective realization; though, and here comes the trick, he soon escaped back to his natural terrain. There goes the magician castling into an orgy of special effects designed to recreate an imaginarium of symbolism which works alright and catches the audience in a somewhat irregular way, affecting in the same way the script.

"The Lovely Bones" is a work of great emotion and visual beauty, but it is excessively long and redundant in its message. It would have worked better perhaps with less footage and a more dynamic and direct narration.

As expected, Saoirse Ronan excels and confirmes herself once again as one of the most outstanding young talents of the moment: even if she does not reach the level she showed in "Atonement", still she shines with her own light.

In this stellar cast, Stanley Tucci also shines. He played ​​a nasty and frightening character almost magically, rising in many times with the prominence of the film, despite playing a repulsive murderer.

"The Lovely Bones" is a drama marked by erratic patterns, by the expectations generated, by a violent insistence on emotions, something that inevitably takes the audience away from the desired haven.

Director: Peter Jackson

Writers: Fran Walsh (screenplay), Philippa Boyens (screenplay)

Stars: Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg and Saoirse Ronan