The Lovely Bones is one of those novels that just doesn't translate well to film.  I read the book well over five years ago, which is a rather perfect amount of time to judge an adaptation appropriately.  I'm not going to be too critical of details because I don't remember them, but I do recall how I felt about the novel.  While I was deeply moved by the characters and themes in the book, the film left me feeling like Peter Jackson bit off way more than he could chew.

The film centers on Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a young girl that has been brutally murdered and now watches her family from the after-life.  She is stuck in the "in between" because she can't come to terms with her death.  Her family is also struggling with both the loss and the unsolved crime against her.

Ronan delivers an excellent performance as Susie Salmon, although much of her work is a haunting voice over.  Stanley Tucci is creepy and almost unrecognizable as Harvey in a performance I wish was contained in a better film.  The rest of the cast seems almost marginalized by the mess of a story, and it's quite a shame when you have Rachel Weisz at your disposal. 

While it's beautiful, the CGI after-life is over done, distracting, and yet very obviously Peter Jackson's focus.  The characters in the real world are never given enough development for the audience to connect with and the film feels like a bunch of vignettes that don't quite fit together.  In its effort to be several different films (family drama, supernatural thriller, teenage love story), The Lovely Bones ends up failing to resonate as anything worth watching at all.

 So How Does It End?

This isn't a spoiler rich film as you learn of Susie's murder and who the killer is immediately.  But if your expecting a satisfying resolution (and the film kind of makes you expect one), you aren't going to get it.  Her killer is never brought to justice but dies freakishly when an icicle falls and causes him to tumble violently down a ravine.  He's never arrested in the novel either, but because the book is a very focused story about a murdered girl and her family coming to terms with what happened, it seemed very true and real that they had to move on without this closure.

Susie also gets to briefly enter the body of another girl (Ruth, but why mention her when the movie hardly does?).  Here she finally kisses her teenage crush, Ray.  This scene is at the very least awkwardly done, but their whole relationship was so underdeveloped, why am I surprised?

My advice on this film is to read the book, or watch something else.  I give it two out of five.