Stanley Tucci is a pedophile.
March 19th 2010 07:10
The Lovely Bones (better late than never)
Based on a book by one of those heartwarming authors, or so I hear.
Seemed a bit sadistic to me, but I guess that passes for inspirational in some circles.
Like cults. And abusive relationships.
Enough small talk. Let's get down to it.
Watching this movie was one big, long marathon of sitting and wondering what was going to happen next.
And not in a good way. I was not sitting at the edge of my seat staring with shiny eyes, entranced, at the screen, oh no.
Instead it was more like sitting – lounging really – back in my chair, checking the clock on my phone every few minutes thinking, "...Is something going to happen now?" I'll admit, there was occasional cursing, berating, yelling, even (I have no respect for fellow movie-goers. If you want a quiet movie, wait till the DVD comes out, that's my motto.) as the characters repeatedly did exactly what they shouldn't have done. And if they had listened to me, Susie Salmon might still be alive, but that's another blog altogether.
Of course, from the previews (which were misleading, by the way, but aren't they all?) we go into it knowing Susie Salmon ("You're the little Salmon girl, right?" says the pedophile, and we all cringe.) dies at the hands of Stanley Tucci, her creepy neighbor. So the first 20 or so minutes are mildly torturous as the movie sets up for us a lovely introduction to what would have been a wonderful life for a young teenager, if such a thing were possible. A close-knit, loving family, a beautiful boy who liked her back, a young high schooler with a million possibilities open to her.
And then we meet the neighbor, and we're reminded she's going to die after being violated at the hands of a bearded pedo. A creative, dedicated pedo who has decided he must have Susie Salmon, and builds an elaborate underground playhouse complete with bottles of pop (which would be cute – calling it pop – if she wasn't about die a terrible death). This is where Susie meets her demise, but the sequence is heartbreaking. From Stanley Tucci talking Susie into climbing down into her death chamber to check out the really cool thing that he built, to Susie's face changing from awed to uncomfortable to nervous to terrified as she tries to escape and he yanks her back down, to her family seated around the dinner table wondering why it's taking so long for her to get home, while we know she'll never come home again.
And then the pain of the family, of her mom and Mark Wahlberg and the strangely detached sister and the flipping adorable little brother. Who wants to see that kind of pain? Me, apparently, the knowledgable movie goer who has seen the previews. Still, I never expect the part when I cry like a baby after a fictional character (I've known for all of fifteen minutes) dies.
And then the waiting starts. The waiting for the police to get a clue and arrest the balding, bearded, chubster of a Stanley Tucci, waiting for the dad to figure it out as the previews imply, waiting for the sister to become a crackhead or a slut or all of those other things that happen when a girl's family falls apart. Waiting for the mom to crack, for Stanley Tucci to slip up, for Susie Salmon to leave the fantastical purgatory she's in. Even she had to get bored just walking...and staring...and playing...and living in this always-changing environment where her only friend is a girl who speaks in riddles.
And nothing happens. The police don't figure it out. The dad does, but it doesn't solve anything. The sister does, but that doesn't solve anything, either (although there is a heart-pounding scene where she narrowly escapes his house, after sneaking in to search for clues, and being surprised by his hasty return home). The mom does crack, and leaves, heals, gets a haircut, and returns, just in time for the sister to bring home the evidence damning Stanley Tucci.
This is where we theater-goers rejoice, thinking that finally, years later, Stanley will get his.
But of course, he escapes. He takes her body (wrapped up nice and neat in a safe in his basement), takes it to the sinkhole on a farm, and dumps Susie Salmon into a giant hole in the earth before the guys on the farm cover it up with mud. This is another of those cursing, heart-pounding scenes. With each mighty thump of the giant safe hitting dirt as Stanley rolls it to the sinkhole, you wonder how he's going to get caught, who is going to blow the whistle. The weird ghosty girl, who saw Susie the night she died and hooked up with her boyfriend immediately after? Said boyfriend, who is watching Stanley from the window and knows something is off? Or the sister, who maybe took the initiative one last time and called the police, who are racing to the farm right now to cut Stanley off from his escape plan? Or Susie herself, who suddenly materializes out of nowhere?
After a surreal scene in which the ghosty girl turns into Susie Salmon (yes, I am serious, actually) and uses her temporary mortal body to kiss her would-be boyfriend before disappearing back into the otherworld forever, we find out that nobody comes to catch him, to catch the safe before it sinks into the mud. Not even an improbable filler character can bother climbing up out of the woodwork to save the day.
And so...Stanley Tucci escapes. Along with all of our hopes and dreams for the vindication of sweet Susie Salmon, the hope we cling onto that the world makes sense, that evil fails and good prevails, that the good people come out on top and the bad get what they deserve.
Sure, there's that scene in the end, that scene that's supposed to make us feel like Stanley Tucci got his just desserts, but I don't buy it. The gist is that he's outside of a restaurant, preying on an unsuspecting youngin who we get the feeling that Stanley has been plotting on for a while. But this is not the 70s anymore, and bitches are smarter now. Girls know that there are men out there who will take them for all they are worth and leave them in a back alley, naked and bleeding and slipping away from the world. So when Stan the man asks the sweet young thing if she wants a ride and presses the issue when she declines, she basically tells him to go fuck himself and walks away. Then Susie causes an icicle to break off the tree above him and hits him in the head. When he looks up, surprised, another piece hits him and he falls backward out of surprise. He's standing on an embankment, so he has a long way to tumble, and I hope he feels every rock, every tree, every piece of earth his face smacks into. At the bottom, we know he's dead.
But it's not enough. Not enough by far. He took Susie Salmon's bright, long future, and the lives of the others that we see in that one heartbreaking scene, all of the young girls he has pumped and dumped over the years. And he gets to what? Enjoy all of those encounters, and then mentally, over and over until the next girl. And years later, now an old man, he falls down a bank and dies?
That's justice?
Sure, there's hell, for those of you who need to cling onto the idea that those who are evil of heart and mind will burn in flames for eternity. But really, how likely is an eternal time-out? Maybe there's some kind of retribution in the after-life, but what if there's not? What if this is all there is, and when we die, we sleep forever?
Yes, obviously I know that life is not fair, and that there aren't always good endings. I get that, believe me. Reality is hard, and cold, and lined with rusty needles. I don't like reality, that's why I watch movies, to get that warm fuzzy, to reinforce the idea that in a perfect world, the good guy wins, and the bad guy goes to jail, where he is anal-raped every day for the rest of his miserable life.
So if that's what you're looking for, look somewhere else. This movie falls short of warm fuzzies.
A few more thoughts – Stanley Tucci is amazing, Susie and her sister are impressive, and Mark Wahlberg is, as always, exactly what I thought he was going to be.
Based on a book by one of those heartwarming authors, or so I hear.
Seemed a bit sadistic to me, but I guess that passes for inspirational in some circles.
Like cults. And abusive relationships.
Enough small talk. Let's get down to it.
Watching this movie was one big, long marathon of sitting and wondering what was going to happen next.
And not in a good way. I was not sitting at the edge of my seat staring with shiny eyes, entranced, at the screen, oh no.
Instead it was more like sitting – lounging really – back in my chair, checking the clock on my phone every few minutes thinking, "...Is something going to happen now?" I'll admit, there was occasional cursing, berating, yelling, even (I have no respect for fellow movie-goers. If you want a quiet movie, wait till the DVD comes out, that's my motto.) as the characters repeatedly did exactly what they shouldn't have done. And if they had listened to me, Susie Salmon might still be alive, but that's another blog altogether.
Of course, from the previews (which were misleading, by the way, but aren't they all?) we go into it knowing Susie Salmon ("You're the little Salmon girl, right?" says the pedophile, and we all cringe.) dies at the hands of Stanley Tucci, her creepy neighbor. So the first 20 or so minutes are mildly torturous as the movie sets up for us a lovely introduction to what would have been a wonderful life for a young teenager, if such a thing were possible. A close-knit, loving family, a beautiful boy who liked her back, a young high schooler with a million possibilities open to her.
And then we meet the neighbor, and we're reminded she's going to die after being violated at the hands of a bearded pedo. A creative, dedicated pedo who has decided he must have Susie Salmon, and builds an elaborate underground playhouse complete with bottles of pop (which would be cute – calling it pop – if she wasn't about die a terrible death). This is where Susie meets her demise, but the sequence is heartbreaking. From Stanley Tucci talking Susie into climbing down into her death chamber to check out the really cool thing that he built, to Susie's face changing from awed to uncomfortable to nervous to terrified as she tries to escape and he yanks her back down, to her family seated around the dinner table wondering why it's taking so long for her to get home, while we know she'll never come home again.
And then the pain of the family, of her mom and Mark Wahlberg and the strangely detached sister and the flipping adorable little brother. Who wants to see that kind of pain? Me, apparently, the knowledgable movie goer who has seen the previews. Still, I never expect the part when I cry like a baby after a fictional character (I've known for all of fifteen minutes) dies.
And then the waiting starts. The waiting for the police to get a clue and arrest the balding, bearded, chubster of a Stanley Tucci, waiting for the dad to figure it out as the previews imply, waiting for the sister to become a crackhead or a slut or all of those other things that happen when a girl's family falls apart. Waiting for the mom to crack, for Stanley Tucci to slip up, for Susie Salmon to leave the fantastical purgatory she's in. Even she had to get bored just walking...and staring...and playing...and living in this always-changing environment where her only friend is a girl who speaks in riddles.
And nothing happens. The police don't figure it out. The dad does, but it doesn't solve anything. The sister does, but that doesn't solve anything, either (although there is a heart-pounding scene where she narrowly escapes his house, after sneaking in to search for clues, and being surprised by his hasty return home). The mom does crack, and leaves, heals, gets a haircut, and returns, just in time for the sister to bring home the evidence damning Stanley Tucci.
This is where we theater-goers rejoice, thinking that finally, years later, Stanley will get his.
But of course, he escapes. He takes her body (wrapped up nice and neat in a safe in his basement), takes it to the sinkhole on a farm, and dumps Susie Salmon into a giant hole in the earth before the guys on the farm cover it up with mud. This is another of those cursing, heart-pounding scenes. With each mighty thump of the giant safe hitting dirt as Stanley rolls it to the sinkhole, you wonder how he's going to get caught, who is going to blow the whistle. The weird ghosty girl, who saw Susie the night she died and hooked up with her boyfriend immediately after? Said boyfriend, who is watching Stanley from the window and knows something is off? Or the sister, who maybe took the initiative one last time and called the police, who are racing to the farm right now to cut Stanley off from his escape plan? Or Susie herself, who suddenly materializes out of nowhere?
After a surreal scene in which the ghosty girl turns into Susie Salmon (yes, I am serious, actually) and uses her temporary mortal body to kiss her would-be boyfriend before disappearing back into the otherworld forever, we find out that nobody comes to catch him, to catch the safe before it sinks into the mud. Not even an improbable filler character can bother climbing up out of the woodwork to save the day.
And so...Stanley Tucci escapes. Along with all of our hopes and dreams for the vindication of sweet Susie Salmon, the hope we cling onto that the world makes sense, that evil fails and good prevails, that the good people come out on top and the bad get what they deserve.
Sure, there's that scene in the end, that scene that's supposed to make us feel like Stanley Tucci got his just desserts, but I don't buy it. The gist is that he's outside of a restaurant, preying on an unsuspecting youngin who we get the feeling that Stanley has been plotting on for a while. But this is not the 70s anymore, and bitches are smarter now. Girls know that there are men out there who will take them for all they are worth and leave them in a back alley, naked and bleeding and slipping away from the world. So when Stan the man asks the sweet young thing if she wants a ride and presses the issue when she declines, she basically tells him to go fuck himself and walks away. Then Susie causes an icicle to break off the tree above him and hits him in the head. When he looks up, surprised, another piece hits him and he falls backward out of surprise. He's standing on an embankment, so he has a long way to tumble, and I hope he feels every rock, every tree, every piece of earth his face smacks into. At the bottom, we know he's dead.
But it's not enough. Not enough by far. He took Susie Salmon's bright, long future, and the lives of the others that we see in that one heartbreaking scene, all of the young girls he has pumped and dumped over the years. And he gets to what? Enjoy all of those encounters, and then mentally, over and over until the next girl. And years later, now an old man, he falls down a bank and dies?
That's justice?
Sure, there's hell, for those of you who need to cling onto the idea that those who are evil of heart and mind will burn in flames for eternity. But really, how likely is an eternal time-out? Maybe there's some kind of retribution in the after-life, but what if there's not? What if this is all there is, and when we die, we sleep forever?
Yes, obviously I know that life is not fair, and that there aren't always good endings. I get that, believe me. Reality is hard, and cold, and lined with rusty needles. I don't like reality, that's why I watch movies, to get that warm fuzzy, to reinforce the idea that in a perfect world, the good guy wins, and the bad guy goes to jail, where he is anal-raped every day for the rest of his miserable life.
So if that's what you're looking for, look somewhere else. This movie falls short of warm fuzzies.
A few more thoughts – Stanley Tucci is amazing, Susie and her sister are impressive, and Mark Wahlberg is, as always, exactly what I thought he was going to be.
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