Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)
Certified: PG
Duration: 129 minutes
Directed by: Stephen Daldry
Starring: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman, Zoe Caldwell, Jeffrey Wright
KRS release

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close had me reaching for my handkerchief more than once. Extremely well made and acted, Stephen Daldry’s film suffers only from the fact that it is at times over-manipulative and syrupy sweet for its own good.

this is a tricky film that may not be to everyone’s liking but it found its way to my heart by disguising itself as a whimsical fable...- Johan Galea

The film seems to have been made with the Oscar voters in mind and this is simply too overt not to be noticed. Other than that, the film is brimming with emotions and takes you on a journey that is sentimental, full of interesting characters and, like its young protagonist, demands and deserves to have your full attention.

Young Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) has many problems. He lives in New York with his mother Linda (Sandra Bullock) just across the road from the apartment in which his grandma (Zoe Caldwell) lives. He is afraid of everything: subways, trains, airplanes, swings, people and many more things. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre have further accentuated his fears, moods and idiosyncrasies. His father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), to whom he was deeply attached, died in this event.

A year later he musters some courage and goes through his father’s stuff. He finds a jar which he breaks to find a key, with an envelope with the word “Black” on it. He also finds a newspaper on which he remembers his father circling the words “don’t stop looking”.

Oskar and his dad had loved playing detective games; his father used these games to push his intelligent but socially awkward son into society. Oskar believes that his dad wanted him to find a person whose surname is Black and hand him over the key; thus he would find an answer or the objective which his dad had wanted him to find. Thus Oskar beings a quest to find all the Blacks in New York.

Meanwhile, a mysterious old man called The Renter (Max Von Sydow) comes to live with his grandmother and Linda seems to be falling into depression.

The film tackles the 9/11 subject without detaching itself from the vacuum of emotions that the event left behind it. Oskar continuously calls the day as “the worst day” and we all can seemingly enough relate to it. This is an event that has now been imprinted in our memory.

Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer is at its heart the story of a boy trying to cope with the death of his father.

However, the film piles in layers and layers of cuteness, weirdness and quaintness to make this picture a very different movie experience.

Young Thomas Horn ably overshadows Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock with relative ease. He embodies the confusion and awkwardness of a young boy and adds a cocktail of other elements that will make it hard for his performance not to leave an effect.

Mr Daldry has made quite a career in finding such young talents. In fact, Mr Horn reminded me of Jamie Bell’s performance in Billy Elliott, another film by Stephen Daldry.

Oskar at one point makes a reference that he might have Asperger Syndrome. Yet all the actions, his obsessions and the way he treats others around him show that he really suffers from this syndrome.

At one point Mr Daldry makes us relive 9/11 and we get to see it through the eyes of the young boy and through messages left on a telephone.

Mr von Sydow is the only adult actor to be on a par with Thomas Horn. His Renter is a man with a mysterious identity even though his identity is very easy to pick up. However, the way he relates with Oskar, their daily forays into the world and people they meet make this film look like a modern fable.

Overall, this is a tricky film that may not be to everyone’s liking but it found its way to my heart by disguising itself as a whimsical fable to only let me savour this whirlwind of emotions.

At times the film reeks of TV melodrama, at times it is sincere and, at others, manipulative, but this is one incredibly carefully planned film that really left me shedding a tear or two and, like Oliver Twist, wanting more.