The whole point of The Lovely Bones, as I understand it, is to chronicle how the family slowly heals and moves on. Unfortunately, this is the one aspect of the story and the film that are not done very well. It spends a lot of time on visuals of Suzy in “the in-between,” and it spends a lot of time on the sicko and his compulsions, neither of which is very interesting (or important, frankly). But in the end the various members of the family seemed like cardboard cutouts. Who were these people, really? The emotional impression these characters make is like a sketch outline: the father becomes obsessed with the murder, but he’s kind of dumb and un-resourceful so he fails and his life stalls in the process; the wife can’t take his behavior so she moves out (for most of the film); the crazy grandmother takes over the family (mostly for “comic” relief); the second daughter is smart, driven and sympathetic to the father’s obsession; the would-be boyfriend (of Suzy’s) is devastated and mopes around. Really, it gets no deeper than this.

The casting is good, but the actors have almost nothing to do. Rohnan is perfectly cast as the daughter, and comes off the best because her main assignment is to stand there and look adorable and innocent and otherworldly, which she has covered in spades. Wahlberg is warm and effective in his role, but he doesn’t have that much to do. Weisz is also good, but has even less to do. Susan Sarandon is disastrous as the grandmother.

Tuchi’s character is the most cardboard of them all. Who the fuck is this whack-job? How does he earn a living? How did he evade capture all these years? He frankly doesn’t seem very smart. He digs a big fucking pit in the cornfield in back of his house to kill the girl in, and then does a crappy job filling it in and leaves garments with her blood on them at the site. He keeps the girl’s body in his basement. He makes no pretense of being anything other than a really creepy weirdo who does nothing but sit in his house. His alibi in the police interrogation is pathetic: he was just in his house all day (and he isn’t even sure about that) with no witnesses. As he talked to the police he looked and sounded like the dead girl’s body was right under his sofa cushions! Plus, he’s obsessed with little girls’ doll houses. It’s just plain bad writing that the police weren’t all over this guy, especially since the big fucking pit is right behind his house! The police in this story remind me of Sheriff Lamb in Veronica Mars, which is pretty sad.

And why did it take the father so long to consider this ultra-creepy weirdo across the street? Instead he has to wait until the last role of film is developed, where he sees Suzy’s picture of this guy talking with the father and mother? Ridiculous! Wahlberg is carrying on to the police about looking at tax returns to find suspects with THIS character living across the street?! Get real!

Now that I am writing this review, this film is seeming even worse than my initial impression. If I was that father, I would have been like – “okay, her blood and clothing were all over this really deep, elaborate pit that was dug in the cornfield that she walks through everyday coming home from school. I can place her at the school pretty late (I wouldn’t spend critical time wandering around asking total strangers across town if they’ve seen my kid, I’d phone the school and all her friends and construct a timeline of her location), so she most likely was intercepted on the way home. Any obvious clues sticking out? Yeah, a HUGE murder pit dug on her route home and used to murder her. I’d go out there and dig up the soft earth – get its dimensions. That pit obviously took a while to dig (it’s like fifteen feet deep, after all) so the killer is probably local, probably was able to case her route home from school pretty easily … and most likely totally fucking bonkers.”

You don’t dig a pit 15′ deep, 10′ long and 6′ wide, by hand in a flat barren field surrounded by houses without someone noticing something. Chances are some kid saw “a old white guy with a mustache, shoveling and carrying two-by-fours out to the center of the cornfield.” Or maybe something like: “oh yeah, there was this huge pile of dirt, eight feet high, in Mr. Whosis’ back yard the day before.”

But let’s say no one saw this guy’s construction zone, which I simply can’t believe. I would look around the neighborhood and think:  “For starters, is there anyone in the neighborhood on a regular or semi-regular basis who looks at all suspicious? Oh yeah, how about the major-league weirdo across the street who can’t look anyone in the eye, who’s communication style screams deep and significant mental disturbance, who is handy with tools, who acts guilty ALL THE TIME, who does NOTHING, has NO job, NO friends, NO family, NO wife, NO kids … and whose house is right near the big fucking murder pit! Let’s start with him!”

This is step one. Then you hire a private investigator to look into the guy. Did he lie about having once been married? That should be pretty easy to ascertain. Did he move around a lot, and did his relocation pattern happen to coincide with grizzly unsolved murders of cute young girls? Did he ever hold down a job? If so, talk to his supervisors. See if they’re still alive! How about where he lived? Was his landlady ever murdered in an unsolved crime? How does he currently survive with no job? Build a picture of this creep.

Then check around town. Check the local hardware store. “Yeah, he bought 20 two-by-fours, a shit load of nails, and a hinged metal grate – wouldn’t say what it was for.” If not, check the not-so-local hardware stores. The guy is unforgettable, so where ever he bought the stuff from, they’ll remember him.

Then the PI breaks into the house and has a good look around. I’d follow the creep to the grocery store and when he goes in, slash all four tires – that should give the PI plenty of time to find any evidence. Where it goes from there depends on how responsive the police are.

What can I say about this film? The story is silly and unconvincing. The acting talent is wasted, the CGI looks fake (as it always does) and the film is a downer. I say skip it.