When I read Alice Sebold’s grim, startling bestselling novel, I was horrified. Not that is wasn’t well written, but that the subject matter concerns a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally murdered and is looking down on the effect of her death on family, friends and worst of all, the killer. It’s so grim, I couldn’t help but wonder why it was written. Now enter Peter Jackson and executive producer Steven Spielberg, who couldn’t wait to make a film on the harrowing subject. To what end?

This is, in essence, a movie that really didn’t need to be made. I think Peter Jackson was eager to return to his Heavenly Creatures roots—he seems intrigued by eerie fantasies about adolescent girls. In The Lovely Bones Susie Salmon (Saorise Ronan, of Atonement fame) is plucked from life just when it’s beginning to reach its sweetest. She spends a good portion of the movie in the “In Between,” which is neither heaven nor hell, but rather Jackson’s CGI fantasy world. The rules of this place, and Susie’s purpose for being there, are completely unclear. Sometimes she can reach out and affect her grieving family, sometimes she can’t and it never is quite explained exactly what must happen before she can move on, how she feels about it, or what exactly she’s moving on to. Her companions in that world are inexplicable as well. Who has to learn which lessons before Susie is free to frolic in the fields of heaven? Is revenge a part of it? Who knows? Who cares?

Mark Wahlberg does an excellent job as Susie’s father, Rachel Weisz as her mother and Susan Sarandon as her grandmother. And Stanley Tucci plays the unrecognizable, affected killer. It would be virtually impossible for any actor not to be creepy in this role. Perhaps a little less obvious makeup and dental prosthetics would have helped. There really wasn’t ever much that could be done with a film version of the book, especially if the plan was to release it during the holidays. It was obviously done in hopes of strong awards contention, but if everyone involved would have just taken a step back and thought about the subject matter objectively, it wouldn’t have been inflicted on anyone.

Rated PG-13

--Lisa Johnson Mandell