The Lovely Bones is a pretty good book. I generally don’t read fiction but wanted something easy to read and picked it off the shelf, finding it nicely written and quite different from most of the other popular novels on offer at the time. The book is pretty graphic but also balanced out with some ethereal aspects and that is one of the main reasons it works in my opinion.
The film removes all the specifics of the darkness that the book so intimately describes – and for that reason above all else, it falls down at the first hurdle. The beauty and colour and otherworldly elements are all present, Peter Jackson being a master of communicating those things – but making it a more ‘PG’ screenplay kind of shifted the balance away from the poetic aspects of the original story, and for someone who has no idea of the source material it may come over as a little overly romantic or even cheesy.
That said, it’s still well made and the main plot changes work well on screen, even if they did leave a little too much subplot on the cutting room floor.
And while we’re talking about books...
The book of Eli – What a waste of a great idea. I hate to say that about a film starring Denzel and Gary Oldman – but I think the Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society / From Hell) let a potentially great idea escape them with this one. I won’t spoil it by elaborating on this – you find out the basis of the story about halfway through – but after it was over I couldn’t help but think about how much deeper they could’ve gone with the initial premise. It’s a nice looking, well made action film with a small twist and good performances – but had they rewritten the original script and maybe extended it out for another 30 minutes – they could’ve had a classic cult movie on their hands rather than something most people won’t really remember in 5 years time.