Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is a beautiful, sprightly 14-year-old, who rides her bike, builds ships in bottles with her father, and is just beginning to notice boys. After leaving school late one afternoon, as she's taking a short cut through a harvested cornfield to get home, she encounters her family's neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), whom she doesn't really know very well. He entices her to visit the new "clubhouse" he has built beneath the field for the neighborhood kids. Once inside, she realizes her grave mistake. Thankfully, the film doesn't show any graphic details of Susie's death, but trust me, it is disturbing nonetheless, as any murder should.

At first, her mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz), father Jack (Mark Wahlberg) and sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) think she's just late and forgotten the time. As the evening wears on, they realize something is terribly wrong and begin their frantic search for Susie. Eventually the police are called in and Detective Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli) takes over the case. Days later, evidence is found to confirm that Susie has been murdered though her body is never discovered. Jack becomes obsessed with finding her killer to the detriment of his family. In the meantime, Susie is watching all of this transpire from "The In-Between", a world of mystical beauty and vivid colors.

More often than not, wonderful novels do not make wonderful movies. Jackson appears to have tried his best to bring something to life that seems best suited for the written word. He elicits a fabulous performance from Ronan, the amazing, lying little sister from "Atonement". This is not an easy role, but Ronan handles the subject matter without fault, and almost single-handedly makes this a "See It Now!" film --- almost. Tucci is equally effective as the loner/serial killer, creepy enough to look guilty, but clever enough to stay one step ahead of the police.

The rest of the cast is adequate except for McIver who holds her own with Tucci in the tensest scene of the film. She'll be one to watch for in future roles. Susan Sarandon has a small turn as the booze-loving Grandma Lynn --- not one of her better performances --- too much over-the-top.

The biggest problem with this adaptation is the world of "The In-Between". It dominates too much of the film, thus making it 20 minutes too long. If Jackson had trimmed "The Lovely Bones", it would have been a much better offering. I am very disappointed, but I cannot say I'm surprised.

Since I'm one of the handful of people on the planet who did not read Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones", I had no expectations. But with the accomplished cast of Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, and Susan Sarandon, and especially Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci, plus Jackson's direction --- the curiosity level was high. I was not disappointed, although others who read the novel were adamant that the film doesn't measure up.

The first half of "The Lovely Bones" I found to be totally compelling. With Stanley Tucci as the neighborhood mystery man, George Harvey, and his soon-to-be murder victim Susie Salmon (Ronan), playing cat-and-mouse, I was mesmerized. As the meek-appearing George eventually convinces Susie to climb down into his deadly underground hole, the dread was inexorably building. One of the more haunting sequences you'll ever see in the movies is the expression on Susie's face when she realizes George is not about to let her go.

Tucci's memorable performance should be worthy of an Oscar nomination, but the film would be nothing without a superb turn from Ronan, whose character in "Atonement" exasperated and stunned audiences. Now 15, Ronan, a native New Yorker, is on a par with Dakota Fanning for future stardom.

As the distraught parents Abigail and Jack Salmon, Weisz and Wahlberg are fine, Wahlberg displaying the desperation and determination of a father who will stop at nothing to find his missing daughter. That's a can't-miss formula for any film. (Liam Neeson in last year's "Taken" is a prime example; Mel Gibson in the soon-to-be released remake "Edge of Darkness" is another). Weisz is equally convincing as the helpless mother whose world is shattered.

My only complaint with "Bones" is the heavy-handed use of imagery by Jackson to convey the "middle zone" where Susie has landed, an area somewhere between earth and heaven, a temporary resting place for the dead until certain things are resolved back home, like her murder. My illustrious partner Jeanne, who did read the book, recognized that duplicating scenes of this other "worldliness" on film would be nigh impossible, and after a while I found myself thinking, "Okay, already, we get the point -- let's move on".

See "The Lovely Bones" for a chilling performance by Tucci, whose versatility is more evident with every film he makes. And see it, also, for an eerie portrayal by young Ronan as a naive teenager who realizes too late the awful mistake she has made.