Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)
Starring Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Max von Sydow, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright, and Tom Hanks
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Oskar Schell (newcomer Thomas Horn), an eleven year-old kid with symptoms of Asperger Syndrome (despite having an inconclusive diagnosis for the disorder), was having a perfectly normal day on September 11, 2001 -- but that was the day his life was personally changed forever. His father (Tom Hanks), a jewelry store owner, had a meeting in the World Trade Center that morning and like thousands of others, he did not make it out alive. Finding it incredibly difficult to cope with the loss, Oskar comes across a small manilla envelope holding a key in his father's closet. On the envelope is written the word "Black" and, as a way to keep his father's presence alive in his mind, Oskar sets out on a mission across all of New York City to meet every single person with the last name of "Black" to find out if they know what the key will open in hopes that it will somehow tell him more about his father.
Perhaps the film could be labeled sappy, but I found it incredibly moving and touching. Yes, it could be deemed heavy handed, but we're dealing with subject matter here that is incredibly intense and the film doesn't tiptoe around it. In what is perhaps the best film I've seen that deals with the 9/11 tragedies (that isn't a "documentary-type" film a la the spectacular United 93), I'm not ashamed to admit that my eyes welled up multiple times here. Yes, I know no one that was harmed on 9/11, but this film speaks to anyone who has experienced any type of loss, grief, and pain, and speaks to the courage and drive necessary to move on and continue living your life to its full potential.
A film which places a young fourteen year-old kid who has never acted before front and center in every single scene of the movie is asking for trouble if the kid doesn't connect with the audience. That certainly isn't the case here -- I found Thomas Horn a revelation. I realize that's not a word to throw around lightly, but I was really moved by this kid in an incredibly difficult role. I wrote in my original review of the novel that I was so irritated by the character of Oskar that I almost put down the book 100 pages in. The cinematic Oskar worked much better for me. Perhaps I was simply prepared for the quirkiness of the character -- his carrying around of a tambourine to calm himself is just one of his eccentricities -- or perhaps Horn just embodied the character in such a way that made his idiosyncrasies more believable to me. Regardless, despite having a completely different personality than me, I somehow felt incredibly connected to this young kid -- Horn is really playing an "everyman" trying to cope with grief and that portrayal deeply moved me.
Horn isn't alone in excelling in the acting department. Hanks is rather charming in his small role as Oskar's father. In his limited screen time, it's obvious why Oskar loved his father as much as he did and it was his father's joie de vivre that sends Oskar on his mission. Similarly, Sandra Bullock is surprisingly powerful in her limited role as Oskar's mother. Her scenes with the young Horn are gripping and oftentimes heartbreaking.
However, it's Horn's scenes with Max von Sydow that I'll remember the most. Von Sydow plays a man simply known as The Renter, an elderly gentleman who has moved in with Max's grandmother who lives in an apartment across the street from his home. The Renter doesn't speak and instead writes all his thoughts in a little notebook, but Oskar finds himself able to communicate with The Renter more than anyone else in his life. With nary a word spoken, von Sydow is wonderful and positively moving, able to express everything we need to know with the raise of an eyebrow or a shrug of the shoulders.
[There is also a beautiful scene that occurs near the film's conclusion with a man played by Jeffrey Wright whom Oskar meets on his quest to discover the purpose of the key that nearly gave me chills. (Too much discussion of this scene would be a bit of a spoiler so I'll stop here, but I'll likely be discussing it more in my Best Scenes of the Year category in the RyMickey Awards.)]
What is a movie if it's not "manipulative." Film is one of the most "manipulative" art genres around. All movies have an agenda/story to tell and they all try to take their audience on whatever journey the director and screenwriter want us to see. To toss the claim around that director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth are simply playing on our emotional connection to 9/11 isn't a fair critique. They take a horribly tragic moment in our American history, narrow it down to a specific person's take on that painful day, but somehow manage to make it contain themes that speak to us all. Kudos all around on this one. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is, by far, one of the best films of 2011.
The RyMickey Rating: A
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