The Lovely Bones  combines very good acting, suspense, drama and even thriller elements to make a good movie about a young girl who dies–and then has quite a few experiences–after she passes away! The animation was rather well done and the choreography works very well; the cinematography is particularly good as well. The script was also quite good; but I would say that the plot moves along a bit too slow; they could have edited this down by ten or fifteen minutes to make the plot tighter.

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When the action starts, we quickly meet 14 year old Susie Salmon, (Saoirse Ronan), who lives with her parents Abigail and Jack (Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg) and her siblings in a small Pennsylvania town in the early 70s. Susie is a happy child; and she has quite a crush on a young guy at her high school, Ray (Reece Ritchie).

However, things don’t go well for Susie and her family. Unbeknownst to them there’s a neighbor, George Harvey (brilliantly portrayed by Stanley Tucci) who is quite insane; he loves to lure both young girls and teenage girls into situations in which he can kill them and get away with the crime. Unfortunately, George concocts an elaborate plan to murder Susie and he succeeds.

Of course, we are left waiting to discover how–or even if–George will ever be discovered to be Susie’s killer and then brought to justice. Moreover, we see the devastating effects Susie’s murder has on the remaining members of her family. In addition, there’s an excellent fantasy theme running through the film; we see Susie existing in a beautiful world all her own which isn’t quite the real world anymore but not quite all the way into heaven, either. Susie wants desperately to use her mind to send signals to her dad and others to guide them to discover that George is guilty and that he must be brought to justice. However, this may or may nor happen.

In addition, there are other events that go on in this film that I won’t give away here. I don’t want to spoil it for you! I will say that you can look for an excellent performance by Susan Sarandon as “Grandma Lynn,” Abigail Salmon’s mother; and Nikki SooHoo was perfectly cast as Holly.

Hopefully when this comes out on DVD there will be a “making of” featurette and a commentary with director Peter Jackson.

The Lovely Bones may not have been the most thoughtful, intellectual movie of the year; but I found it to be genuinely entertaining and that’s very good. I recommend this film for anyone interested in crime drama as well as fantasy films; and fans of the actors in the film would do well to see this in theaters or add this to their collections when it comes out on DVD.