Director: Stephen Daldry
Year: 2012
When making a movie that involves aspects of a tragedy on the scale of 9/11, there is a fine line between exploitation, and an honest portrayal. Unfortunately, this film really does not walk that line very finely. That is my largest problem with it. I found it very offensive to be honest. BUT I will get more into that later on. Let's start with what I liked about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
The acting I thought was, for the most part, delightful. Thomas Horn played his role as Oskar very well, having to memorize very difficult lines, not to mention portray very mature and difficult emotions. Tom Hanks, though he is in the movie very little, was impressive as always. Max Von Sydow did a great job in a role absent of dialogue.
As far as cinematography is concerned, I thought that this was a very beautifully shot film. Lots of intricate camera work mixed with slow camera moves really helped set the tone that you were in a HUGE city.
And, that is honestly about all I liked about this movie. Everything else seemed too cute, too forced, or too exploitative. I figure the best place to start with things I disliked would be, well, the story. Well, not the story per-say, but just the way it was told.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about a young boy named Oskar Schell who loses his father to the 9/11 tragedy. During their time together, they had a very strong relationship, with Oskar's dad (Thomas) using innovative ways to teach Oskar people skills, and just overall knowledge. As we find out, Thomas thinks that Oskar has social issues, so he uses an interesting method to force him to talk to people. Thomas loved to send Oskar on these recon missions to try and find the 'sixth Burrough' of New York. So, as you can imagine, him losing his father was unfortunate.
So one year after 9/11, Oskar is snooping around in his dad's old closet when a vase falls down and shatters on the floor. In the vase, Oskar finds a key in a small manila envelope. On the envelope, the word 'Black' is written. With some help of the local locksmith, Oskar decides that the ONLY logical thing to do is to find everyone in the phone book named Black, track them down, and ask if they know anything about what lock the key might open.
Oskar thinks that his dad left the key as a new mission for him to take, to find what it opens, so he can live with his dad's memory happily, forever.
So, basically, that's exactly what he does. Well, there is more. Along the way he meets this old man named 'the renter' that lives with his grandmother. He doesn't talk, but he takes an interest in Oskar, and joins him for a little while. (Also, we find out that he is Oskar's grandfather.) He also says that he wishes it would've been his mother that died instead of a dad. What a sweetheart.
In the end, it turns out that the key belongs to the very first person that he met, and that it had nothing to do with Oskar and his father at all. It actually had to do with that man and his father. Go figure!
So there you go, on the very base, an interesting story. So what don't I like about it? Well, for one, the pointless aspects that seem to be thrown in there. For instance, why is the mute grandfather character necessary? He is only there for about 25 minutes, then he is gone. Also, they keep cutting back to 9/11, sometimes at awkward times. But I'll get more into that later.
Thomas Horn acted Oskar's character beautifully, as I said before. But the character himself was, drastically unrealistic, to say the least. It is okay to make a silly, unbelievably smart child character in a movie. But to pull something off like that, he needs to live in a silly world. Not a grieving state one year after the biggest tragedy to happen on U.S. soil. It completely clashed with the tone, and almost made light of 9/11.
I know that the whole point of the film is that Oskar's father helped him face his fears, even beyond the grave, but it was really executed poorly. There is absolutely NO way that a 10ish year old child is going to be brave enough, or organized enough, to track down every single person with the last name of Black in New York, let alone actually find them and go to them. Yes, he wants more then anything to find what the key opens, and yes, it is because of his father's lesson that he is brave enough, but really?
It is also odd to me that this key that Oskar is carrying around ends up not even being relevant. Once again, I know that the point of the film is that his father gave him the skills to do this, and that alone should make him proud, but this was a big deal to me. Red Herrings and McGuffin's are fine tools in cinema, but when the entire integrity of the movie falls completely flat in the end because of them? That isn't okay.
Some of the scenes in this movie also felt painfully forced. I actually laughed out loud at a scene in the theaters because of it. It seems like every once in awhile, they would just throw in a random fight between him and his mom, centered around, you guessed it, 9/11. Not really the fact that his father died and they don't know how to move forward, but that 9/11 took him.
Now, to the big killer for me. The thing that ruined this movie: the shameless dolling up, and exploiting, of 9/11. Whenever they want the audience to feel sad, or angry, or sympathetic, they bring up 9/11. They either talk about it, or show news clips, or play the voicemail's that Thomas left for Oskar on 'the worst day', or other methods. It is completely offensive that the movie couldn't create their own emotion. It would have been simple: use the father's death in general as a driving point for the film. There is really no need for 9/11 to really be mentioned once in this movie. It would have been just effected if his dad had died from say, a heart attack, or a stroke. Heck, it would have been the same if he got hit by a damn bus. The fact that they are constantly referring to 9/11 is just a cheap cop-out.
I know that people are going to say that this movie isn't about 9/11. If that is so, why would the film makers spend so much time on the subject? There was probably a mention of 9/11 just as many times as in this review. I know that people are going to say that this movie is brave, and that we as Americans have to love it, just for the content it shows. I don't buy that for one second. This film exploits 9/11 any time it needs emotion, and uses it to make a silly journey out of a serious event.
I'm sure I could keep going, but this is all I will say for now. This was an interesting story that really got ruined by the constant cute-ness, and forced sadness.
2/5 stars.
