Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)

It took me a week to review this because I was of a very divided mind about it. Generally I try to review a film as quickly as possible after seeing it so I can better capture my emotional reaction, but I kept flipping back and forth on this film. Now I want to get it out before I lose any connection with it and it becomes just another line on a to-do list, as this film deserves more than that.

Extremely concerns itself chiefly with young Oskar (Thomas Horn), who shares a close relationship with his father Thomas (Tom Hanks); the boy is bright, and the father stimulates his intelligence and critical thinking by creating games and quests for him. When Tom is killed in the 9/11 attacks, Oskar has difficulty dealing with his loss, and develops a number of personality tics to try to cope with the sudden and horrific loss. When he finds a key among his father’s belongings, he draws upon the skills his father imbued in him to try to find what it goes to, hoping it will reveal a secret that will bring him closer to the memory of his missing parent and perhaps provide some closure.

Horn is terrific as Oskar, and his confusion and terror are palpable, as is his determination; he remains steadfastly focused in only the way a child can even when the plan to find the lock the key fits seems hopeless. Along the way he dodges his well-meaning mother (Sandra Bullock) and encounters an old man who sublets a room from his grandmother, known only as The Renter (Max von Sydow). The Renter is mute perhaps by choice (it’s not fully explained), and has ‘yes’ and ‘no’ tattooed on his palms. He ends up befriending Oskar and eventually aids him in his search.

Everyone’s excellent here. Of course, all the adults are established actors, but Bullock moves nicely outside her comfort zone of well-meaning klutz to deliver a very subtle performance. Von Sydow never says a word and yet he captures the imagination almost from the get go. And it’s possible Hanks has never been as warm or likable as he is here, a nearly perfect father, so that we feel some of Oskar’s pain when suddenly he’s no longer there.

And yet there are some contrivances in the story that tugged at me. While The Renter is an intriguing character, he feels more like a character from a book than a real person (I kept waiting for him to speak, even a single word, but no). And the mystery of the key, which drives much of the story, wraps up with an almost Dickensian sense of familiarity, where you find out the chimney sweep is really the admiral’s long-lost sister’s son blah blah blah. The Renter plays a major role in the center of the film, yet he’s dropped toward the finale and only brought back as an afterthought; for a character so central to the proceedings he ends up not really haing that much to do with them. I liked many of the pieces of this film, and it is a tearjerker in spots, connecting powerfully in some scenes. But it doesn’t quite add up to a completely satisfactory whole, as if certain elements are forgotten or misplaced and then suddenly recalled to the center of the story.

Nonetheless there’s some powerful acting, and the movie reminds us (as if the events of Boston of late didn’t) that we aren’t still really over 9/11 in many ways, and I guess we never will be, at least not any time soon. There’s some fine acting in the film, and it’s probably worth a look for that alone; but be warned, the plot doesn’t always shake out.

April 28, 2013