The Lovely Bones
Just watched The Lovely Bones last night with Dr My-Fiancee (aka Dr Soon to be my Wife). It was in many respects the worst movie to watch at night with the woman you are planning on having children with some day. Some of those respects? Allow me to enumerate:
- if you have nightmares that are triggered by movies
- if you are prone to nightmares regularly even without watching movies
- if your nightmares tend to involve you being murdered by a faceless stranger
- if the movie you are watching involves a young girl being murdered by a nasty stranger (who starts off faceless)
- if you are having premonitions that you will only be having daughters, and are already worrying how you will protect them from nasty strangers
- if you are just generally disappointed and horrified with human nature
You should probably not watch this movie.
So I am aware of myself gritting my teeth and scowling throughout the movie (which is a good sign because I think it means I am not a socio/psychopath who gets off on this sort of thing), and realizing that I have to go to bed when this is done. It's not looking good, and so after the movie ended I had to sit in the living room and read for a bit to calm down (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Paperback) in case you're interested - it's quite good I think. I have a review up on GoodReads.com - again, if you're interested).
This extra time meant I could give a good think to the movie or at least let it sink in and make a deeper impression.It's quite a suspenseful movie, really, and I found that even though I knew what was coming, my heart was racing and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I - quickly - felt a great empathy for the main character and her family (which is weird because according to Dr Soon to be My Wife, I have "trouble empathizing with women"), and was wrapped up in the simple events of her life to an extent that startled me (stand down with those "you've always behaved like a little girl, Lo Fat Mo" jokes. We've heard them all before). It was a bit overly lyrical with the afterlife imagery in oversaturated hues, but having said that it did a much better job than What Dreams May Come which made the afterlife seem like series of video game levels. That may have had something to do with the creators of the latter film being influenced by Dante (not in and of itself a bad thing) whereas I think that the creators of the former were letting their fancy fly free (boy that sounded poncy, but I really don't think that Alice Sebold's original novel was so big on the oversaturated colors and soprano warbling [which, for the record, I liked]). The bonds between friends and family, siblings, parents were very believable, which made the breakdown [spoiler alert!] of the parents' relationship in the wake of their daughter's murder that much more poignant. Even now I can feel my chest tighten up, watching the father sitting on the floor of a ruined study crying the hot tears that men weep when they come face to face with their inability to protect their own. Powerful stuff... I pray that I never have to deal with it myself.
Man, this has gotten long and it starting to ramble, so I'll cut it off here. I'd be curious to hear what other people thought of this film, though.