Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

MANILA, Philippines - Whenever a movie comes out and it makes reference to the World Trade Center attacks, in part or in whole, a question of whether it is “too soon” should probably be considered. After all, that was just over a decade ago and the images of that day may still be vivid in the minds of people all over the world—even more so for those who lost someone dear to them on September 11, 2001.

It is a coping mechanism of sorts, perhaps, that has stood true throughout time. People somehow find solace in entertainment, movies in particular, when tragedy strikes. It is for them a means of remembrance and in this instance, a way of honoring the innocent lives lost.

In “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) honors the memory of his father, jeweler Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks) by simply finding the lock to a key he believes was left for him by the only parent he believes truly understands him. Oskar, as the audience will soon realize, is a hyper-active boy who’s wise beyond his years and his extremely loud behavior in the film tends to be incredibly close to being overbearing. His mother Linda Schell (Sandra Bullock) is left to deal with Oskar’s quirks mostly by her lonesome and this means letting the young boy go off on his journey across all five boroughs of New York City to find the person whose last name is written on the envelope that contained the key.

Oskar’s only clue is a solitary word and how he deduced that it is a person’s name is beyond me. So he gathers from a telephone directory the contact details of every person with that last name and sets forth to find that which his father wants him to unlock.

Along his journey he meets people who, like him, have stories to tell—some were too happy to accommodate Oskar, while some were less affable. He then meets a mysterious man who rents a room in his grandmother’s (Zoe Caldwell) flat. For all of Oskar’s loquaciousness, “the renter” (Max Von Sydow) is limited to writing words on paper as his means of communication. And Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the novel of the same title, realizing that the two would make for a good contrast, had Oskar and “the renter” work together.

As I mentioned earlier, Oskar’s frequent shouting came off as a bit distracting but it was how the people around him reacted that made “Extremely Loud andIncredibly Close” the drama that it’s meant to be. In fact, the only time that I was on the verge of tears was when Oskar and Linda finally sat down to have their talk.

“Extreme Loud and Incredibly Close” wasn’t necessarily about 9/11 itself but even in the few times in the film that it was about that, it still felt unwarranted. A particular image that I could have done without is that of a man, whom I wasn’t even sure if it was supposed to be Tom Hank’s character, falling from one of the towers and face first onto the screen. Thankfully, we were spared the gore as it quickly cut to the next scene.

Horn, however, is the revelation of this film. A Jeopardy champ, Horn’s smarts and memorizing ability apparently proved useful in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” as he would churn out his lines with ease.

Under different circumstances, director Stephen Daldry could have had a runaway winner here. But my dilemma with “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is that the use of 9/11 as a tool in moving the narrative forward was not used properly in that the necessity of using that particular event did not resonate well enough. The wonderful thing about it though is that it shows that there are still stories out there to be told, even if it’s just that of a kid finding a lock to his key.

("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, opens across the Philippines today.)