Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) by Aaron H — 27 Feb 2013

The material and ideas are stretched paper thin over the two hours running time. Despite fighting and looking for reasons to hate it, I did find myself getting sucked in as Sandra Bullock comes to the fore in the final act.

Max Von Sydow steals the show as an elective mute, the film would have been greatly improved by giving Thomas Hornes character the same trait and dumping the cloying voice-over. I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume it was made with earnest, rather then oscar-baiting, intentions - but the 9/11 based material is tremedously difficult and it's humanist philosophy clumsily, and a bit too cutely, conveyed.