The Creepy Bones

Saoirse Ronan is doing pretty well for herself. The 15-year-old Irish actress (her name is pronounced Sorsha) has got two impressive films on her CV - 2007's Atonement and now Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Both of which I loved. I don't understand exactly why it is called The Lovely Bones, but then again I didn't know what atonement meant until I just Googled it.

Having read the book in summer 2006 on a balcony in Puerto Banus, Spain, I couldn't remember anything of the storyline when I went to see the film. I remember being mildly terrified at some parts of the book, in particular one night when my family went out for dinner with friends and I remained on the balcony alone as it crept towards midnight. I remember deciding to move inside the apartment at one point and swap the book for a John Legend CD; so convinced was I that I was going to die alone in that apartment.

I digress.

The Lovely Bones should not have been awarded a 12A certificate. Whilst it was not graphic, the suggestion was bad enough. I would not chaperone an eight-year-old to see a film which involves a man lying in a blood and mud-filled hot bath, with a facecloth over his face, in eerie silence whilst a charm bracelet chinks against a blood-soaked sink with a knife in it.

And nothing is scarier than being trapped underground (not that it has happened to me) with porcelain screaming clowns surrounding you, with a paedophile, who at some point during your short time down there you realise is going to kill you. So you run for the ladders leading back up the earth, but, of course, you are an insect in a jar and can't get up the sides.

Stanley Tucci is terrifying as Mr Harvey. Who'd have thought that Gay Nigel from the Devil Wears Prada, the lovely, cruel-but-kind fashion assistant at Runway magazine who plays mentor and guardian angel to green Andy, could play such a part? Misty blue contact lenses, huge glasses, a toothbrush moustache and pervert-esque combover render him unrecognisable.

I mean.........























Italian Stallion to pervert neighbour in a few hair implants.



Saoirse's face is slightly annoying because it means you're in for another five minutes of her running towards rainbows or sashaying through fields of corn when it comes on screen. But apart from these slightly boring other-worldy parts that Suzie Salmon (the dead girl) frolicks in whilst she is waiting to get to heaven, the Lovely Bones is a fantastic film that makes you think about it long afterwards. If only about how the Devil Wears Prada is ruined forever.