The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2009)

While I was touring in NYC with my band last week, I took some downtime and went to go see The Lovely Bones.  $12.85 later, I find myself in a theater with about 25 seats and a screen no bigger than a Jimmy Hendrix wall hanging.  Whatever, it’s New York.

I was concerned at first that I would need to be completely enveloped by this film in order to enjoy it’s overwhelming visuals and super dramatic content.  Fortunately, I was wrong.

The out-of-this-world visuals fall flatter than a Bard kid after 40 ounces of Olde English.  All of the drama lies in the real world of this film.  Only two words make The Lovely Bones totally worth watching:  Stanley and Tucci.  Even on my 6′ screen, I hung on his every snort, mumble, and breath.

While Peter Jackson doesn’t take too many risks, he does start to show his experience in some of the most beautiful visual sequences I’ve seen all year.  No, I’m not talking about the giant ships in their giant bottles crashing against the giant rocks (as my companion astutely put it: “like a microsoft window’s screen-saver”), I’m talking about George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) and his doll houses.  What struck me most was a single ingenious aesthetic decision; as it looked to me, all of the interiors of George’s house and his constructed doll houses were shot on RED.  The digital technology brings about a gorgeous sterility to the image that instantly put me on edge.  Peter Jackson finds intimate shots of the miniature houses and watches as George lords over them and inspects them to the last detail.  The mixed-media works especially well on an audience that doesn’t know the difference between the RED and film because they subconsciously detect a difference: something is wrong.  It is beautiful and unnerving.

I could go on about Stanley Tucci, but I’d be missing the other unsung hero of this film, who works tirelessly behind the scenes to bring something interesting to purgatory.  Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Eno.

Fortunately for you, the best special-effect shot in the film is in this little clip: her glowing silhouette as she grabs at the flower at 1:01.

Brian Eno gives Peter Jackson the gift of pace and silence.  The strongest moments come between the over-blown voice over and the silly vistas as we watch the bright-eyed Saoirse Ronan exist alone while Eno provides the ethereal soundscape.  The sound excels without drawing attention to itself, which the images do.  The images shout: “LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL I AM! YOU CAN CRY NOW!” but the score doesn’t over-stimulate.  It’s moody, yes, but I never felt manipulated.

I wasn’t expecting a lot from the film, but I was pleasantly surprised by pieces of it, and I think it worth watching at least once.  So there’s the actual review part, although personally, I enjoy fixating on a few details for a whole post instead.

Oh and don’t forget: Don’t go down into subterranean clubhouses with strange men.