Paramount Pictures

Mark Wahlberg plays a grieving father determined to figure out who killed his daughter Susie (Saoirse Ronan) in "The Lovely Bones."

Paramount Pictures

Academy Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement") stars in "The Lovely Bones" as a murdered girl who watches over her family -- and her killer -- from the afterlife.

Director Peter Jackson and his screenwriters have squeezed a little bit of everything into "The Lovely Bones." There's serial murder, teenage romance, suburban life, a marriage in peril, a gaggle of ghosts and even a take on the afterlife.

Like the 2002 Alice Sebold novel on which the film is based, the screen version of "The Lovely Bones" is thoroughly absorbing from its beginning until its end more than two hours later. The difference is that the story's diverse and multiple parts don't fit together as snugly on screen as they do in the popular book.

Perhaps the movie tries to go in too many directions. Or perhaps it's a matter of emphasis.

Sebold achieved a reasonable balance among the diverse elements, if memory serves, whereas it's the murder story and the radiant afterlife that seem to engage Jackson most. The film's other elements, especially the performances of a strong cast, seem to receive less of his attention and consequently they draw less of the audience's attention as well.

"The Lovely Bones" is narrated by 14-year-old Susie Salmon. She speaks from a sort of celestial way station between Earth and heaven. From that ever-changing and gorgeous perspective, Susie observes her family and the creepy neighbor who has murdered not only her but eight or nine other girls and young women.

Besides watching her family gradually heal inside a protective shell of imaginary "lovely bones," she grapples with the question of how the killer might be caught and suitably punished. Only when Susie's unresolved earthly issues are settled, we are told, can she move on to heaven itself.

Susie is played by Ireland's preternaturally gifted Saoirse Ronan, who was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of the child whose lies ruined a man's life in the film treatment of Ian McEwan's "Atonement." Her Susie seems built of just the right post-pubescent blend of sarcasm and artlessness.

The film's other standout performance is that of Stanley Tucci, who is barely recognizable but typically impressive as George Harvey, the murderer. Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz are solid as Susie's grieving parents but are overshadowed by Jackson's preoccupation with the gruesome crime and the special effects purgatory that he and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie have concocted.

Susan Sarandon is a bit over the top as Susie's blowsy grandmother, and Michael Imperioli (a leading hood in "The Sopranos") is on hand as the detective assigned to the case.

Admirers of Sebold's novel may feel let down by Jackson's film, though they should not; the media differ and must answer to their differing imperatives. More flexible viewers should find the movie perfectly entertaining in its own right.