The Lovely Bones (2009)

Saoirse Ronan stars as Susie Salmon ("like the fish"), who is murdered at age 14 and watches her family from heaven. Her father (Mark Wahlberg) becomes obsessed with finding the identity of the murderer: a creepy neighbor (Stanley Tucci), who builds dollhouses and keeps to himself. Rachel Weisz plays the mother who gives up and runs away. Thankfully Susan Sarandon is on board as Grandma Lynn, who drinks constantly and makes it look as if everyone else is nuts. Meanwhile, Susie occupies a visually splendid heaven, with all kinds of colorful, ever-shifting images, shared with the mysterious "Holly Golightly" (Nikki SooHoo).

More than anything, The Lovely Bones feels like a film circling the book, eyeing it uncertainly and trying different kinds of styles and moods to see if anything fits. As it stands, some scenes work and some do not, and they fail to add up to a coherent artistic whole.