The movie Lovely Bones, the reviews of which is in this article, is a famous drama directed by Peter Jackson. The picture was released in 2009. It is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by the American writer Alice Sibold, who at one time became a bestseller.
Plot of the film
The picture "Cute bones" reviews received mostly positive. The film takes place in Pennsylvania in 1973. The narration is conducted on behalf of the main character Susie Salmon (she is played by Saoirse Ronan). She lives with her parents, a younger sister and a very small brother. Suzy herself is 14 years old.
The plot begins in the supermarket, where Susie meets the Englishman Ray, who attracts the girl. Attention is drawn to her grandmother, who tells her about her first romantic memories. About the first kiss, which became one of the best moments of a lifetime.
At the school cinema club, Susie sees the film "Othello", and then unexpectedly meets Ray again in the hallway. He dates her.
Meeting a stranger
Inspired by the coming evening, Susie returns home through a cornfield. Towards her comes across neighbor George Harvey (played by Stanley Tucci). He is already a grown man, much older than a girl. George invites her to see a special refuge. According to him, he created a house underground, specially built for children's games. Susie inspects the house, but when she wants to leave, a neighbor kills her. Leaving this world, Susie’s soul touches the girl Ruth, who begins to feel her presence. On Saturday at the appointed time, she arrives in the alley where Susie is waiting for Ray. After this evening, they begin to meet.
In the movie Cute Bones, Susie’s soul must go to heaven, but she’s stuck in the intermediate world, because she can’t leave people close to her. From her paradise shelter, she begins to monitor relatives and her killer. Moreover, from time to time they all feel the girl next to them.
Meanwhile, the investigation of her disappearance is at an impasse. The corpse cannot be found, because Harvey hides him in the safe of his basement. Parents of the girl in mourning. Father does not give up, trying to find the killer. He is sure that this is someone she knew. Susie's mother does not withstand such pressure and leaves for California on the advice of her grandmother. There she gets a new job and begins a new life.
Killer uncovered
Suzy wants to punish her killer. By that time, the girl’s father realizes that Harvey’s killer, he found his image in one of the photographs taken by Susie. But he has no evidence. The police warn him that in this case, problems may begin with the father of Suzy.
Once he sees Harvey on a cornfield, rushes after him with a baseball bat, but stumbles upon a couple in love. He is brutally beaten.
And Harvey again wants to kill. This time he draws attention to Susie's sister - Lindsay. Suzy, being in her world between heaven and earth, finds out that she was not the first victim of a maniac. Before her, he had already killed several girls.
About who the criminal, Lindsay begins to guess. She makes her way to his house, finds a diary that details the murder of her sister. But returning home, she finds a mother who came from California. Not wanting to spoil the moment of family reunion, he passes the diary to his grandmother.
Harvey, on the other hand, saw Lindsay creep into his house, but did not have time to catch up with her. He understands that he will be revealed soon. A safe with Susie's body is dumped into a hole on the outskirts of the city, and he hurriedly leaves.
The finale of the picture
The film "Cute Bones" recalling the audience received such positive thanks largely to the ending. Suzy refuses to go to heaven with the souls of other girls.
Instead, she moves into Ruth's body to enjoy the first kiss in her life. Only after that she forever leaves the world of the living. Her family is gradually getting better. Lindsay has a young man. They are expecting a baby.
Harvey, however, manages to escape justice and settle in another city. But soon he dies, falling off a steep cliff. At this time, he was just looking out for his new victim, since he could not get rid of the craving for murders.
Suzy Salmon
Saoirse Ronan starred in the movie Cute Bones. Reviews about the actors, primarily about Ronan herself, came in positively from both the audience and critics.
Ronan is an Irish actress. At the time of filming, she was 15 years old, almost like the main character.
She began her film career back in 2003, appearing in one of the episodes of the series "Clinic". Her two most notable roles are Briony Tallis as a child in Joe Wright’s military melodrama The Atonement and Eilish Lacey in John Crowley’s melodrama Brooklyn. For them, she was nominated for Golden Globes and Oscars.
Stanley Tucci
In the film "Cute Bones", reviews from many viewers are dedicated to the brilliant game of the main anti-hero - Mr. Harvey, played by Stanley Tucci.
This is an American actor who began his career back in 1985 in the John Houston crime comedy "The Honor of the Przzi Family."
The most successful was the image that he created in Cute Bones. In the reviews of the film, his game was necessarily noted. And the actor was nominated in the category "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" at almost all major film festivals - "Golden Globe", "Satura", claimed the United States Screen Actors Guild Award and the victory in the "Critics' Choice" film award. But everywhere he lost. Hit the short list and Oscars. Here, the winner was Christoph Waltz, who played Hans Land in the blockbuster Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds".
Primary source
Analyzing "Cute Bones" reviews of the film very often came down to comparing the picture with the original novel. The merit of the director is that most of those who read this work favored the film adaptation. What happens infrequently.
This novel was written in 2002 by Alice Seabold. “Lovely bones” reviews were immediately enthusiastic - both from readers and from literary critics. This story has a lot of autobiographical. The writer herself was raped in 1981 when she was in her first year at the university. After 16 years, she was able to cope with this trauma and wrote her biography, which she called "Lucky."
The fact is that in the tunnel in which she was abused, shortly before this, the girl was killed and dismembered. So she, in a sense, was lucky. Seabold later recognized the offender and reported him to the police.
Sudden success was Seabold's Lovely Bones novel. The reviews were most favorable, despite the fact that this was only the second book of a little-known author. She immediately entered the list of major bestsellers of the year.
In 2007, Seabold also wrote a novel, it is called "Almost the Moon." This is a story about a woman who lived for many years for the sake of others. One day, she decides to change everything dramatically and kills her elderly mother, who suffers from madness and agoraphobia.
Over the next day, which are described in the work, she receives help from her ex-husband, who becomes an involuntary accomplice in the crime. Enters into an intimate relationship with the son of his best friend, hiding along the way from the police, who is on the heels of. The novel is filled with lyrical digressions, in which the main character recalls the difficult relationship with her mother, which were throughout childhood.
Director Peter Jackson
This is not the first successful work for the director Peter Jackson, who decided to film "Cute Bones". Criticism was mostly positive.
With the film adaptations he is not the first to face. His most successful work is the incarnation on the screen of the fantasy epic of John R. Tolkien “The Lord of the Rings”. For the picture "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" he received three Oscar figurines - for the best film, best adaptive script and as the best director.
In his paintings, he often appears in a cameo. In the movie Cute Bones, Peter Jackson played a photographer in a store.
Positive reviews
The film "Cute Bones" has caused great interest among viewers around the world. It should be noted that in general there were more positive reviews about the picture, about 80%.
Those who liked this work of Jackson noted that the director was able to clearly demonstrate the dissonance in which the main character appeared. For one evening, she got from an almost perfect world in which she had everything (a loving family, school success, the first teenage romance beginning) in the world of a bloodthirsty maniac who fanatically kills young girls.
Fans of the picture liked the touchingness in this film, which tells the story of the unfortunate Suzy. And the plot itself literally captures from the first frames and does not let go until the very end. The main thing that this film teaches is the need to love each other while everyone is alive. After all, everyone knows the proverb that we do not keep only what we have, and when we lose, we begin to cry.
Spectators and critics noted the successful selection of actors for the main and secondary roles. Stanley Tucci managed to play a nondescript man, to whom the viewer began to feel disgust from one of his kind. Appropriate effects were also found in the picture, which organically supplemented the picture with the corresponding mood.
Negative reviews
But there were many who didn’t like the Cute Bones. Feedback from opponents of the film was based on the fact that the form of presentation of the material turned out to be as simplified and template as possible. Many did not like that the plot of the novel was simplified as much as possible before transferring it to the screen. The scriptwriters reduced the time intervals, removed the depth from the relations between the characters.
As a result, it turned out that acting was minimized, the evolution of feelings that occurs in each of the main characters eluded the viewer's eyes. Instead, Jackson was accused of paying too much attention to frequent retries, often meaningless.
The semantic subtext of the picture is also reduced to banality. This is the main complaint of those who were not satisfied with the picture.