There is a great movie hiding somewhere within The Lovely Bones. Peter Jackson’s latest film is often beautiful despite the melancholic setting. Its main character, 14 year old Susie Salmon, is a sweet, happy-go-lucky girl, who wants to grow up to be a wildlife photographer. Since she can’t take pictures of rhinos, she has to make due with the buxom girl across the street. She’s also somewhat of a brave girl. In an early scene, she discovers her brother incapacitated and therefore steals her father’s car and drives frantically through the streets,  races past stop signs, and nearly gets in several dozen accidents on her way to the hospital.

With all these endearing qualities, it’s hard not to feel your heart stop when she is approached by her despicable neighbor, George Harvey,  played by Stanley Tucci with a rather insect-like footing. This scene could have easily been brutal, but instead Jackson opted for taste, therefore making the scene ultimately creepy and heart-wrenching, but not savage enough to empty out a theater. So in a sense, it’s still brutal, but only emotionally. The assembly of this sequence establishes a common theme for the film: the distant connection between Susie and her family from two separate locations. From this point on, the film inter-cuts between Susie in the afterlife and her family coping with her disappearance.

Susie is stuck in some sort of purgatory. It’s not heaven. It’s not hell. It’s, as her younger brother puts it, “the in-between.” This is where the film delivers its most beautiful and astonishing footage. The world is often dreamlike and digs deep into Susie’s psychology, stealing elements from the real world and transforming them into digital wonders. While most of these sequences offer magnificent imagery, there are times when the world is a bit overwhelming. The moment that this is most true is a short sequence where Susie and her new friend, Holly, use the world as their playground. The character of Holly is a source of another ailment. Her character, as we learn, has an interesting place within the story, but she is completely mishandled. Her character could have played a larger part in a very tragic element of the story, but is ultimately treated like a far too playful and happy character out of Gullah Gullah Island. I almost wonder why they even bothered to establish this subplot at all if it was to be neglected.

The film suffers most from two other major indispositions. The first is the film’s assembly. The inter-cutting between the two worlds works only 50% of the time, most especially in a symbolic sequence involving a rose. Sometimes, the jumping back and forth naturally seems to flow in an almost musical sense. But then there are times when you wish the film would simply let some scenes play out on their own, without having to cut away. For example, there is a sequence where Susie embraces the rage and hatred she feels towards her killer. It’s a chilling and necessary moment for her character, but due to its placement, it comes off as random and doesn’t seem to flow with the scenes that came before it. It really could have used more of a build up, which was sacrificed to play off the emotional growth of another character.

My other issue was with the ending. The film deserved a much stronger climax, both emotionally and eventfully. Ultimately, the events that take place in the latter portion of the final act would work well in a book, but not necessarily in a movie. At least, not this movie. Not in the way it is setup. The story deserves a send off that is much bigger and better (or, in one case, worse) than what is actually in the film.

The Lovely Bones is a flawed, but vibrantly beautiful and bittersweet film. It features amazing cinematography and, for the most part, a rather touching score from Brian Eno. While the film really needs to finish off its emotional arc, there is enough emotion in the story to invest in most of its characters and the roles they play in it.

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