The Lovely Bones (2009)

Stanley Tucci makes the neighbour George Harvey alarming through ordinary social effort: a tentative smile, an over-managed voice, a wish to appear harmless that never quite relaxes. The film's elaborate vision of the afterlife can smother the sharper story of grief around it. Tucci's uncomfortable normality brings the danger back to human scale, alongside Saoirse Ronan's vulnerable presence. The child-murder premise is deeply distressing.