When Dull Books Become Duller Films

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough. That's what Robert Ebert said, right? Well, today I finally got to put that quote to the test when Jyg, Izzy and I sat down to watch The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson's "masterpiece" based on the novel of the same name.

Now Peter Jackson is known for two things: The awesome and everlasting The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the crap-fest, remake of King Kong. Guess where The Lovely Bones lands?

Now it may not be Jackson's fault. The Alice Sebold novel was hell for me to read. So much so, I put it down and never picked up again. Not even tempted to. Truth is, after reading a bit of her memoir, Lucky, I started to gather that she was a one trick pony. Okay, not to be in the least insensitive - but what I'm gonna say will seem otherwise - I get the fact she was rape and said rape was life changing for her. I wouldn't want to meet the person who could endure something so violent and not be affected. With Bones, however, Sebold probably pondered the could've been rather than what did happen to her.

And it isn't so much that I don't believe in Heaven or any of that afterlife stuff - I did, for some weird reason, enjoy What Dreams May Come - it's just that the story was so mind numbingly boring.

So when the adaptation was announced, I thought maybe it would be easier to sit through than the book. Of course, as usual with these sort of things, I was dead fucking wrong. While declared one of the best movies to come out in the tail end of 2009, this film was waaaaaay to long for its own good. At times, it would drag on for what seemed like - in Izzy's words - 30 minutes in one single scene trying to push one single message.

The acting was great, even though several times you just wanted to strangle the characters in the movie. At times when things seemed the most illogical, the characters would be doing it. And while the purpose and message of the film wasn't unclear to me, it seemed like a cop out of the entire film. I don't know, it was just terrible. A waste of my bloody time, which is ironic considering that the main character ends with this little quip: "I wish you all a long and happy life." Yeah, well, thank you for wasting two hours of mine.

(via: Tumblr)