Z/Web

Author: Alice Sebold (novel)

Director: Peter Jackson

This film’s fatal flaw is also it’s most compelling aspect. The story’s a grim one about a 14-year-old girl murdered by a serial killer in 1973. This happens at the beginning of the film and she ends up stuck between heaven and earth and watches her family struggle to deal with her loss. That the subject matter is so somber is the heart of the film’s problems, because it’s not a pleasant subject to watch for over two hours. The film feels dreadfully long, probably double its runtime. It would have been far better if 30 minutes was cut. The storyline is so simple it holds no surprises: obviously the girl is already dead and she’ll go to heaven once her family’s properly healed. We’re itching for that healing from the beginning, but of course it doesn’t come until the very end, which makes all the stuff in between somewhat tedious. The writers and producers were somewhat aware of this problem; unfortunately their solution was to tame down the material. For instance, though I haven’t read the novel, I heard that in that the girl’s body is chopped up and the killer accidentally loses her elbow which the cops find and the family knows she’s dead. That’s grim. In the film, the cops only find her knit hat soaked in blood. Also in the film we’re not shown the murder itself. I realize the producers wanted a more mainstream film, but all this weakens the effect of the murder. In fact, I wasn’t even sure the girl was murdered (she wasn’t either as she didn’t realize she was dead). While the bad guy was definitely portrayed as creepy, we don’t realize just how evil he is until much later in the film. The story could have been so much more powerful if we’d seen up front how this seemingly nice guy was really the most hideous monster. It wouldn’t have been pleasant, but it would have been an emotional sock to the gut. Instead, we get this vague watered down thing with no violence shown and it’s bewildering and too tame. Another weakness that annoyed me is there are many “spooky” scenes in the film: odd little glances and exchanges between characters, scenes of tension when the sister sneaks into the killer’s house looking for evidence, etc. Unfortunately most of the time there’s nothing concrete behind these moments. Or at least we aren’t shown what triggers them. For example, the camera will pan by the killer’s house with ominous music and he’ll do something innocuous like close his curtains. The sister’s watching as she jogs back and she’s creeped out. Why? Do you get creeped out when your neighbor closes his curtains? I need some sort of a reason why she’s bothered. Does she suspect he’s the killer? (She doesn’t until later in the film.) Is it just some weird sixth sense or instinct? If so, then show us something that tells us that. This happens in other ways as well, like when the killer returns home while the sister’s in his house, he immediately starts looking around like he’s suspicious. Why? Does he hear or see something? That is not shown and I found his action bizarre. If this had only happened once or twice it wouldn’t be such a problem, but it happens dozens of times in this film, and the result — at least for me — was that by the end of the film wolf had been cried so many times that I didn’t buy the tension and the dramatic music came across as cheesy melodrama. Tension is great: but do like Hitchcock and show us why we should be scared, why the characters are suspicious, etc.

Despite all these flaws, however, I still like this movie. I liked it far more than I expected. The heavenish fantasy scenes the murdered girl lives in are wonderful, both in beauty, imagination, and special effects. Peter Jackson’s vision is terrific. I loved the way the girl’s heavenly dream world mixed with elements of real life. My favorite was when her father, whose hobby was building model ships inside bottles, began smashing his collection in his grief. For the daughter, who was on a beach, this showed up as giant glass bottles with huge ships inside washing up on shore and shattering against the rocks. Jackson intercuts between the two scenes and it’s tremendously powerful, as the giant glass bottle ships breaking up really feels like the world is ending, the girl crying and pleading to her dad to stop, and him basically losing it. Just wonderful and amazing. The film is full of great moments like that. There are many astonishing scenes of tenderness and beauty. There’s sadness, but there’s happiness as well. The film does of great job of portraying the healing that takes place over time. There are some weird things, like at the end when the dead girl temporarily exchanges bodies with a living character (I didn’t get that at all and it didn’t seem to fit within the story’s reality), but overall this is an impressive film. It’s far from perfect, however. It’s long, focuses on a grim subject matter that the producers seemed afraid to mention (this story could have been so much more powerful), and much of the tension felt artificial to me, stirred by the score without anything in the shot to justify the alarm. The performances are excellent for the most part (though the father character felt dreadfully miscast and Mark Walberg needs to stay away from emotional scenes as he just makes me want to laugh when he pretends to cry). I thought the killer was fantastic, definitely awesome, and surprisingly the younger sister (who ages during the story which takes place over several years) was better than the murdered lead (not that the lead actress was poor, she just had the one-note role of being dead).

Overall, this is one of those odd films where the many flaws are clear, but I liked it anyway. In fact, I am shocked at how much I liked it. I think I would at least consider owning this on disc: the fantasy sequences alone are worth it to me to study, as are many individual scenes and shots. As a whole it doesn’t quite work as a film and I don’t think I would watch it entirely through again, but I would love to explore certain parts. It is mesmerizing at times. Recommended, but with caution: be aware going in that this isn’t a great film. It has great moments, however, and if you can enjoy those, I think you’d find this entertaining and emotionally moving.