Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

A nine-year-old amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Director:

Stephen Daldry

Writers:

Eric Roth (screenplay), Jonathan Safran Foer (novel)

Stars:

Tom Hanks, Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 9 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tom Hanks	...	Thomas Schell
Thomas Horn	...	Oskar Schell
Sandra Bullock	...	Linda Schell
Zoe Caldwell	...	Oskar's Grandmother
Dennis Hearn	...	Minister
Paul Klementowicz	...	Homeless Man
Julian Tepper	...	Deli Waiter
Caleb Reynolds	...	Schoolboy
John Goodman	...	Stan the Doorman
Max von Sydow	...	The Renter
Stephen Henderson	...	Walt the Locksmith (as Stephen McKinley Henderson)
Lorna Pruce	...	Locksmith Customer (as Lorna Guity Pruce)
Viola Davis	...	Abby Black
Jeffrey Wright	...	William Black
Hazelle Goodman	...	Hazelle Black

Storyline

A troubled young boy, Oskar, is trying to cope with the loss of his father. Oskar starts lashing out at his mother and the world. Until a year later, he discovers a mysterious key in his father's belongings and embarks on a scavenger hunt to find the matching lock, just as he used to when his father was alive. On this journey he is bound to meet a lot of people and learn a lot about himself and his family, but will he ever find the lock?

---

Plot Keywords:

lock | key | new york city | september 11 2001 | nine year old | 

---

Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Mystery

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for emotional thematic material, some disturbing images, and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 January 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tan fuerte y tan cerca

Filming Locations:

Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$110,775 (USA) (30 December 2011)

Gross:

$31,836,745 (USA) (23 March 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions, Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

129 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Datasat Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Sandra Bullock (Linda Schell) was actually in New York with her family and witnessed the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashing into the World Trade Center's South Tower (September 11, 2001)

---

Goofs

A Megabus drives by in a scene where Oskar is walking through Manhattan. Megabus didn't start service in NYC until May of 2008. (The bus is red at 1:03:19, blue at 1:03:32.)

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Oskar Schell: There are more people alive now than have died in all of human history, but the number of dead people is increasing. One day, there isn't going to be any room to bury anyone anymore. So, what about skyscrapers for dead people, that are built down. They could be underneath the skyscrapers for living people, that are built up. We could bury people 100 floors down. And a whole dead world could be underneath the living one.

---

Connections

Featured in The Big Picture: February 2012 (2012)

---

Soundtracks

"If You Know The Lord Is Keeping You"
Performed by Charles Taylor

User Reviews

Although so full of raw emotion, it's hard to feel it

Grief is a process. Psychology books and personal experience will tell you that. Perhaps not all of us experience someone being ripped from our lives in an instant, but the process is always the same. Why then, is it so challenging to watch 9-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks) dies in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, endure this all-too-familiar pain? It should be moving to see a young albeit peculiar child come to terms with this in his own way.

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" attempts to play powerful cinematic music with extremely sensitive strings. The story is steeped in trauma and mourning, so the obvious danger would likely be creating a film that's too heavy or suffocating, but this story has moments of quirk, sincerity and even adventure. The trouble is that not until the end does the film ever let go of what Oskar calls "the Worst Day"—his code for 9/11. It haunts the entire movie, and while that can certainly be justified, it throws us out of sync with the characters, who all seem to experience the fiercest of emotions when we aren't ready for them.

The biggest problem is Oskar. It has nothing to do with the young Horn's performance, but everything to do with how Oscar winner Eric Roth was forced to adapt him for the screen. I have not read Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, but my guess is given the abundant use of narration in the movie, Oskar tells the story in the first person. Considering we are forced to follow and identify with a 9-year-old with Asperger's and probably some form of autism, understanding and relating to this character is crucial, yet maddeningly difficult.

Understandably through no fault of his own, Oskar treats his mother (Sandra Bullock) poorly, swears at his apartment building doorman (John Goodman), throws temper tantrums, lies and despite his curiosity and adventurous spirit, uses deduction in place of logic. He's a nightmare of a main character, and his constant relapses as the film flashes back to 9/11 butt in every time you start to warm up to him.

Director Stephen Daldry has experience working with troubled boys ("Billy Elliot"), but he doesn't appear to do enough to help us sympathize, which could be the result of roadblocks in the script. Given that Oskar holds secrets even from the audience until close to the end, most of which deal with revisiting 9/11, it's hard to feel bad for him. He's just a strange kid afraid to move on, which isn't exactly revelatory.

Oskar's pursuit of finding what a mysterious key found in his father's closet belongs to is supposed to be the start of an adventure, but one that never really blossoms. The closest it ever gets is the 30 minutes in which Oskar befriends The Renter (Max von Sydow), an old man choosing to be mute that lives with Oskar's grandmother in a nearby building. He accompanies Oskar on his journey and challenges him to overcome his fears, and makes for an interesting compliment to the ever-gabbing child. If you had to nominate "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" for an Academy Award, it would be for von Sydow, so in that sense perhaps he deserves recognition.

All the colorful characters you would expect Oskar to meet as he tries to find every single person with the last name Black living in New York City exist in voice-over snippets. From a quick outside glance, the story would likely be about a child going on an adventure expecting to find a meaningful answer and learning that the journey was the entire point, but it somehow ends up way more convoluted.

"Extremely Loud's" Best Picture nomination is extremely unwarranted. Despite the talent on and behind the camera, the product as a whole is messy and most importantly, unable to connect emotionally with its audience. Certainly some people will connect with a moment or two and really appreciate the film's emotional fearlessness, but anyone versed in Oscar- caliber drama knows this doesn't fit the bill despite all the venerated talent that put this movie on Oscar radars everywhere when it first came together.

Maybe it's that abundant talent that makes the film's shortcomings all the more difficult to bear, but the more you think about it, the more you realize this kind of a perspective on September 11 — from the eyes of such a challenging protagonist — probably doomed it from the start. The craftsmanship, the acting and some of the raw moments in the story make the film nothing to scoff at, but the impact of it all, which is the heart of this kind of drama, doesn't come across as it should.

~Steven C

Thanks for reading! Visit moviemusereviews.com