The Lovely Bones (2009)

So, I wasn't really paying attention when this was on telly (I think I was booking holiday stuff), therefore my observations may not be entirely accurate. Consequently this review is just of my general impressions.

I think I'm right in saying that the film is based on a book; and I could see how the idea of a murdered girl discovering the afterlife and helping her family find her killer could work in a  novel. But adapting this idea for a film was a very ambitious project, and I'm not quite sure that Peter Jackson et al really pulled it off. Like I say, I wasn't entirely paying attention, but it felt a little disjointed, and the afterlife sequences were particularly confusing (rather like the beach scenes towards the end of Tree of Life).

The cast however were mostly excellent. Saoirse Ronan gives another incredibly mature performance, she really has played some very demanding roles, and hasn't really failed at all as far as I'm concerned. Mark Wahlberg was alright, that is he wasn't really annoying. Rachel Weisz was good (as far as I remember) and gave a very emotional performance. Stanley Tucci was the best by far. He was superbly creepy throughout the whole film, being secretive and smarmy, yet with the potential to snap at any moment.

I have a feeling that this film came in for a lot of criticism when it was released, maybe some of it was deserved; though I suspect it might be because it was quite a confused interpretation of what I suppose was quite a challenging source. Some of the special effects were definitely spectacular, I just wonder whether the film was too reliant on them. I think if the two main lead characters hadn't been so good, then my overall impression might not have been so good.

Hanna

Hanna is a young girl raised by her father, Erik, in a wooden hut in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Finland, within the arctic circle. Erik has taught her to kill, fight, and generally to take care of herself. It becomes apparent after a while that she has been trained as an assassin to take out one particular target, when she finally finds herself out in the real world.

Hanna is played very capably by Saoirse Ronan; she is able to swing between action sequences and her quieter scenes of self-discovery. Obviously Joe Wright sees something good in her, as she also plays the young Bryony in Atonement. Speaking of Atonement; remembering a tremendous one-take steady-cam shot, I was on the look out for one in Hanna, and wasn’t disappointed. Eric Bana (Erik - Hanna’s father) arrives in Berlin and is shadowed by CIA guys. As we follow him through a bus station, down into the U-bahn, he is confronted by 3 or 4 CIA guys, Erik manages to take care of them all, before leaving calmly. Very slick, very cool.

The film is obviously more about Hanna and her discovery of herself; consequently we don’t learn quite so much about Bana’s character, though we find out enough to understand the animosity between him and bad-girl Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Marissa’s character is very cold and calculating; as she says: she has made certain life choices (career driven, no kids). She is very prim and proper, well dressed, slightly OCD. I didn’t doubt for a second that she would pull the trigger towards the end of the film. However, Tom Hollander’s character is very under-used. Essentially he is hit-man hired by Marissa to get rid of Hanna; along with two Neo-Nazi-looking characters he follows her from country to country. Beyond that, we don’t learn anything about him (other than he’s gay, or bisexual, or something). So why get someone as established as Tom Hollander to play this one-dimensional character we know nothing about? Not sure.

It’s probably almost inevitable that some comparisons will be made with Bourne (trained assassin-type-person, not sure who they are, goes on a journey of self-discovery); but where Bourne maintains momentum and intrigue throughout the entire trilogy, Hanna flounders slightly and doesn’t know what to do with itself. The story particularly loses its way during the middle section of the film, as Hanna makes friends with a British family on a travelling holiday in their camper-van. Hanna has a few discovery moments (being scared of electric appliances, meeting boys, trying a first kiss), but none of this contributes to the story, at least not in a worthwhile way I feel.

I did enjoy the film. Some lovely cinematography, particularly the snow-covered north of Finland at the start of the film; a great thumping soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers (very Half-Life 2 - more gaming references!) which is particularly good when Hanna escapes from the detention centre; a good story (despite it languishing in places); and a good cast.