Contributor: Andy Spencer
Writer: Eric Roth
Director: Stephen Daldry
A film like this is one that I find to be unusually difficult to review. In certain ways, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is a truly great film, while little more than dramatic exploitation in others. I will attempt to break down this dichotomy as best I can, because I believe that is the only way I can fairly critique this movie.
The film begins with a funeral for Oskar’s (Thomas Horn) father (Tom Hanks). Oskar’s anger at the lack of an occupant of the coffin is plain in his face and his voice. He clearly was incredibly distraught by his father’s death in the 9/11 incident, and it is this emotion that fuels his almost-epic scale journey to find the answer to his father’s last riddle. Oskar is very frequently depicted as being far smarter than most kids his age. He can recite seemingly random facts from the Encyclopedia Britannica and thinks of very creative solutions to puzzles (like using a rock as an object from every decade in the last century to solve one of his father’s riddles).
However, his ADHD (or something perhaps closer to Asperger’s) leads him to being nervous around a rather large multitude of things, like moving vehicles, sloppy dentistry, and bridges. This of course being a bit of a debilitation, he apparently has shunned most human contact, making his very socially awkward. However, once his father is gone, he finds he must face his fears, to quote Max von Sydow’s character in the film.
Sandra Bullock portrays Oskar’s mother. Oskar generally shuns her, blaming her for not dying rather than his father. Though it makes the kid come off as more than a bit cruel, it is genuinely powerful, especially once they engage in an all-out shouting match. All the while, Oskar is trying to find what a key left behind by his father fits into. He ends up racing across most of New York in this quest. (Of course, the idea that it might not be safe for a twelve-year-old to be wandering NY streets alone is never brought up.)
The acting is very good. Every actor, be their parts high or low, does a great job with what they are given. Von Sydow, Hanks, Horn, and Bullock are constantly vying for the spotlight, as each one of them could easily steal it on their own. The acting carries the film, and it’s good for the movie that it does, because this film would be sort of unremarkable otherwise.
What drags this film down is its manipulative tendencies. At every single opportunity, it gives you an excuse to feel bad for Oskar. However, this happens so often that you eventually become desensitized to it. Oskar starts the film talking far too much, babbling on even while his partner in conversation is walking away from him. Even though he establishes that he is not the most sociable person, the fact that he is scared speechless by a conversation and so many other things makes him seem to alternate between smart and stupid. Not directly addressing his possible condition adds to this uncharitable impression.
Ultimately, though its heart is in the right place, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” tries way too hard to be a frequent tearjerker. At first it works, but the impact is lessened over the course of the film enough so that by the end, you really struggle to care. This film is one that I feel will be a polarizing one, so I will leave it to fellow viewers to decide upon its quality. For me, it fell short.
Score: 5/10