Set partially in the ordinary Pennsylvania suburbs of the mid-1970s and partially in a swirling Day-Glo afterlife, Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling 2002 novel is a film caught desperately between competing intentions, and while it has moments that soar both visually and emotionally, it ultimately feels torn and unwieldy, something Sebold’s warm and moving novel did not. The acting is superb, especially Saoirse Ronan as the gently innocent Susie and Stanley Tucci as her disturbed killer, but the film’s CGI heaven sequences make us feel like we’re trapped in a lava lamp. (DVD Awards Screener)