Unlovely...

Okay, so I'm a dude who works--in some small way--in mainstream showbiz.  This means I'm well-aware (Oh so painfully aware) of how non-existent I am compared to this guy. I 'get' how inconsequential my opinion is.  I understand (having made one myself) how friggin' hard it is to make a movie, any movie.

Even if you're Peter--freakin--Jackson.

And, look, there were some things about 'The Lovely Bones' that were lovely. Like the composition of his shots. Lovely. Like his way with actors and the performances he gets out of them. Lovely. Like the pacing. Great. Like his courage to just up and make the film he wanted to make even though the first ten minutes were really slow and a bit disjointed (I think he wanted it that way). Laudable.

But the story itself?

Not awesome.

And I 'get' that he's working from existing source material here and, being that he's PJ, we know he can adapt well.  

But really?

Just so, so, SO down and depressing and pointless.

(spoiler alert)

Yes, the Mom comes back (we never find out why).  Yes the Dad is happy to see her (the 'My Girl...' line was nice, if a bit on the nose, considering the original) but I was very dissatisfied with his helpless attempt to figure things out and the resulting beat down. 1) It didn't build well enough 2) I didn't 'feel' it from him strong enough (probably due to Markie Mark who--IM[truly]HO might have been in a bit over his head with this one) and if the story is supposed to be about a 'Father's Love' then, by golly, make it about a Father's love.

AND LET LOVE RULE!

As it stands this movie doesn't end up being about ANYTHING really.  

Best I can figure it, PJ laced a mostly Buddhist view (annihilation/nirvana) on top of an existing pseudo-christian/catholic view and the result of this syncretism was just...

Blah.

(more spoilers) 

The scene with all the dead girls gathering together under the 'Tree of Life'?  I mean, I LOVE anything with a Tree of Life in it, but the scene didn't MEAN anything.  Other than the asian girl (who really just showed up for no reason) there was ZERO connection between any of the girls other than the serial killer killed them, but because we'd spent no time making a connection between them we don't CARE when they get 'back together'.

I could go on and on.

But, the biggest downer for me (other than the whole 'Wife leaves, does nothing, comes back for no reason...' part) was in two parts.

First, are you *really* going to never let us SEE the bones?  I mean, (spoiler alert) I'm still mad about how they paid off (not at ALL) the whole 'Let's roll the safe to the sinkhole' sequence. Mad because PJ did it so well; there was so much tension in that scene. But are you really not going to have the Dad track that down, but arrive too late, then leap down into the abyss after the slowly falling safe and--just as it looks like it's going to sink--aren't you going to have him be able to reach the dial and won't you have imbedded a number in the story, some *way* for him to be able to open it?

Second, the 'Death of the killer' sequence.  SO anticlimactic.  So unmotivated.  Really?  An ICICLE falls on him, (I *know* it was pre-figured earlier in the film but that's NOT enough, it needs to be MOTIVATED by the story, it has to be something that HAS to happen for it to be *worth* happening) knocking him off balance and he falls to his death?  That's it?  That's all he gets?  Sure, she wanted him 'Frozen and bloodless...' and it was nice that they broke his BONES so well but, it wasn't satisfying.

And that's the thing with a movie, it's supposed to be satisfying.

(and I KNOW they were probably making some statement about 'meaninglessness' and the fact that good doesn't always win and suffering is really the way it is and life is often pointless and cruel, but SHEESH, do I have to watch that?)

Look, I *get* that this story (I've got the read the original now 'cause I'm so mad about it) is probably MEANT to be an open-ended, "Look, sometimes bad things happen for no apparent reason and there's nothing you can do about it really and your ultimate destination is oblivion anyway so let's not get too worked up about things now..." sort of story but here's what hit me last night.

People don't like those kind of stories.

I don't want to read, see, or tell those kind of stories.

I'm SUCH a PJ fan.  I don't want to HATE on him, and I'm really not AT ALL. Who am I anyway?

Nobody.

But this nobody was reminded to write stories with something to SAY, some HOPE to share, some LIFE to bring, some MEANING to impart, some REASON to be.

Seems to me an audience wants to be taken on a ride, sure, but they want that ride to end in a "YES!!" And, most importantly, they NEED that ride to end in a "YES!!" because life *is* hard and does *feel* meaningless by times which is why the GREAT stories life our eyes up, to the mountain, from whence cometh our hope...

(unless, of course, you believe the ca(l)va(l)ry's really NOT coming, in which case we're going to need to agree to disagree because you probably thought 'The Lovely Bones' was *profound* or something like that. But me?)

I feel a new script coming on.

'Cause, damn, if Heaven couldn't use a better testimony.

(like that one?)

T