Critical reception
Although Ronan and Tucci were praised for their performances, The Lovely Bones received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a critics approval rating of 31%, based on 244 reviews, with an average rating of 5.00/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It's stuffed full of Peter Jackson's typically dazzling imagery, but The Lovely Bones suffers from abrupt shifts between horrific violence and cloying sentimentality." Metacritic gave the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Ian Freer of Empire gave the film 4/5 stars. Freer emphasized the "bold, daring original filmmaking, with arguably more emotional and intellectual meat to chew on than either the Rings trilogy or Kong." Freer noted that, like The Lord of the Rings, the film "does a fantastic job with revered, complex source material" and that, since it is "as terrific on terra firma as it is audacious in its astral plane", it is "doubtful" that there would be a "more imaginative" and "courageous film" in 2010.
Richard Corliss of Time wrote that "through [Peter] Jackson's art" and Ronan's "magic", the "obscenity of child murder has been invested with immense gravity and grace" and "like the story of Susie's life after death, that's a miracle." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone felt that the film was "conveyed" in a "remarkable performance" by Ronan and described Tucci as being "magnificent as a man of uncontrollable impulses" to "help Jackson cut a path to a humanity that supersedes life and death." Travers praised Jackson for building "jolting suspense." Despite praising the film, Travers noted that while the book "never flinched," the film does. He says that the "business is being transacted" by Jackson with a "Lord of the Rings fantasy", but in this film he "attunes himself to a family tragedy."
Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film 2/4 stars, remarking that while "[Peter] Jackson gets the thriller scenes right", the "conceit of Susie trapped in a DayGlo world between the one she left and her final resting place, imparting lessons on coping with death, feels preachy." Puig also described the film as having "clashing tones" that veer from "lightheartedness to heavy-handedness." She criticized the film's computer-generated imagery, describing it as being "cheesy" and saying that it broke "no ground."
Kirt Honeycutt, of The Hollywood Reporter, described the film as telling "a fundamentally different story" than the novel. It is "one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details", but "it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original." Honeycutt said that Jackson had transformed Sebold's "startling, unique novel about the aftermath of a terrible murder" into a story that's more "focused on crime and punishment."
Stephanie Zacharek, of Salon, viewed the film as being "an expensive-looking mess that fails to capture the mood, and the poetry, of its source material" because it has "good actors fighting a poorly conceived script, under the guidance of a director who can no longer make the distinction between imaginativeness and computer-generated effects." Todd McCarthy, of Variety, felt that Jackson had undermined the "solid work from a good cast" with "show-offy celestial evocations" that "severely disrupt the emotional connections with the characters." McCarthy said that the film, overall, was a "significant artistic disappointment."
Joe Neumaier, of New York Daily News, described Jackson as having "siphoned out all the soulfulness" that made the author's "combination thriller/afterlife fantasy a best-seller" and that the film was "a gumball-colored potboiler that's more squalid than truly mournful." Neumaier also wrote that the film and Jackson "wasted" a "good cast." Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4, calling it "deplorable", and criticizing the apparent message that Susie's murder eventually made her happier. He also criticized the film's portrayal of Heaven, which he compared to "a happy gathering of new Facebook friends". But he praised the acting, stating that "this whole film is Jackson's fault".
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) reported that 24 objections were made to the rating given to The Lovely Bones, more than for any other film in 2010. The BBFC states, "Many found the film to be a shocking and upsetting experience. The scene in which young Susie is entrapped by the killer, and the subsequent sequence in which the killer soaks in a bath after the murder, were compared by some complainants to scenes in '18' rated horror films." The BBFC rated the film a 12A, and many complained that the movie was upsetting for a younger audience. Nevertheless, the BBFC defended its rating: "The Lovely Bones lacked any explicit detail of the murder and any sexual elements were downplayed. The audience's sympathies remain entirely with the family and the film had many positive messages about life."
The Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO) initially rated the film a higher 15A, for the "child abduction and murder" theme. This was lowered to 12A following a distributor appeal, a decision which also received their most complaints of 2010.
In a 2012 interview, screenwriter Lynne Ramsay discussed the film made versus her version of the script. She had read the novel in manuscript prior to publication, and said that her adaptation departed from it significantly. "I really didn't like the My Little Pony, she's-in-heaven, everything's-O.K. aspect", she told The New York Times in 2012. She had depicted the scenes with Susie in heaven as purely in her father's imagination. In addition, Ramsay presented the father as becoming friends with Mr. Harvey, never suspecting him of having killed his daughter.
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