Peter Jackson is officially the go-to-guy for literary film adaptations; following his stunning success with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, why not? While his bringing to the screen of Alice Sebold’s beloved novel The Lovely Bones is more a showcase of his talent for visual amazement than his penchant for storytelling, it’s still an engaging, often successful film.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is a 14-year-old girl living in mid-1970s America; she is your typical carefree teenage girl, pining after boys at school and hoping to find a career as a photographer. However, that promise is promptly cut short when she is murdered by a neighbour, George (Stanley Tucci), and soon enough winds up in the afterlife, where she observes the fallout after her death, as her family attempts to come to terms with her demise.

From the outset, this is quite a chilling film; Ronan’s narration, while at times obtrusive, here lets us know Susie’s fate from virtually minute one, allowing suspense to build through the film’s opening act as we come to wonder what will happen. Speaking of Ronan, she totally nails the American accent, and brings to the table yet another solid turn as a careless teen with flowery ideas about life and love; in fact, for all of the film’s sanitised whimsy and corner-cutting, she best captures the spirit of Sebold’s novel.

Interestingly, the film’s first act characterises Susie’s killer better than it does anyone else, and while a unique approach, it is at the cost of any later emotional impact, for we do not know Susie’s relatives well enough to truly empathise with them when the house of cards falls down. There are only brief glimpses at the nerdy dad (Mark Wahlberg), the stresshead mother (Rachel Weisz), the kooky grandma (Susan Sarandon), and the two siblings. It is script misfires like this which account for 90% of the film’s problems.

Most other issues can be attributed to the saccharine, vacuum-sealed treatment throughout; piano music carefully wraps itself around the dialogue, and Ronan’s hand-holding narration tells us things we’re able to work out for ourselves, making it all the more obvious and far less poignant. Similarly, she also narrates the killer’s feelings and thoughts, which isn’t just too telling, but also rather strange. However, there are bigger, more bothersome issues; the ability for Susie to subtly interact with people on Earth simply makes everything much too easy, and this also detracts a lot from the anguish and torment, as there’s no ambiguity in the fact that Susie has been spirited away to somewhere else rather than being eaten away by worms. Also, the histrionics get a bit much, and by the time Wahlberg arms himself with a baseball bat, things are getting a touch long in the tooth.

Still, there’s a lot to admire here. Though Suzie doesn’t get to Heaven (or the preamble to it) until close to half-way, it’s a trip worth the wait; while superimposing footage of her memories onto the ocean is rather corny, the expansive vistas, painted with moving mountains and bright yellow fields, are truly gorgeous. It’s undoubtedly a unique depiction of between Heaven and Earth, extending to Earth events actually affecting Susie’s environment, such as when her father smashes a glass bottle, and a giant counterpart washes up on the Heavenly beach.

Performance-wise, however, Stanley Tucci, in a virtually unrecognisable appearance, is the absolute standout, and although his Oscar nomination feels a touch too much, there’s more to this turn than a squeaky voice. His performance is imposing, enhancing the tension levied by the fact that we already know what’s going to happen to Susie. Tucci savours every word as George hatches his evil plan, and Ronan manages the scared damsel part fine, but the actual scene of the crime is unfortunately rather tame, and perhaps too tasteful. The novel’s rape is omitted entirely, and her dismemberment is only hinted at by the sight of a blade during a surreal dream sequence.

Once Susie is dead, though, Jackson nails the oppressive and intrusive feel of her demise, framing a post-mortem Susie with Dutch camera tilts which no doubt reflect her unease as she passes on to the other side. Back on Earth, Jackson also captures the desperation of a family in crisis, as Susie’s parents attempt to reason away her disappearance, while the investigating police officer (played by The Sopranos star Michael Imperioli) is less hopeful in his seasoned experience.

Surprisingly, there’s a lot of suspense wrung out of this ethereal existential story, particularly when the cops give George a visit, aided hugely by Tucci’s convincingly slimy performance. Similarly, a later scene, when Susie’s sister sneaks into George’s house, will send the heart running rampant, and if you’ve not read the book, it’s probably all the better. There’s also a decent amount of humour sprinkled throughout, also, particularly through Sarandon’s grandmother character; she’s rather delightful in the role, although the amount of whimsy ultimately seems a bit much for a film that should be unremittingly grim. The tone isn’t too ajar, though, and she’s no doubt at her best when portraying the no-bull alcoholic, while also nailing the emotional elements with more truth than any of the film’s rote monologues, particularly when she urges Weisz to feel the pain of her loss rather than repress it.

The Lovely Bones, for all of its forced emotion, touches on one absolutely devastating truth, that Susie is forced to live her life vicariously through her surviving relatives, glimpsing her sister’s first kiss, for instance. This melancholy – if tainted a bit by some late-day supernatural smooching - has a meditative quality that follows through to an ending which, while not without schmaltzy supernatural fluff, is more about moving on than about justice, and manages to be spiritual without being intrusive to non-believers. For all of its flaws on a storytelling level, The Lovely Bones is a sometimes moving, massively good-looking film.