Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) by Elian D — 09 Sep 2012

Not sure how to describe it. It is sad, its beautiful, even powerful at times, but in the end, it feels a bit pointless.

The first few minutes are a bit boring, and they look like they are setting up what surely must be a tragedy (movie-wise, not about the actual 9-11 tragedy), but it picks up abou 30 minutes in and what follows is quite engaging.

Sandra Bullock's bit is so well acted, that one can only imagine she could be a great actress if she hadn't turned her face to plastic.

The kid is also extremely good, and Max Von Sidow is very compelling too.

Tom Hanks part lets you simply like the guy, because he's played by Tom Hanks and everybody likes Tom Hanks, so you know the dad is a sweet, caring warmhearted person.

The ending of the film comes about 20 minutes after the story is finished, which isn't as bad as it sounds but it does drag a bit longer than it should.

I think one of the problems with the film is that they tried to get too specific with the universals, meaning that they tried to sell you a movie about how 9-11 affected families, when in reality is about a family dealing with the loss of a loved one, the fact that it was at the WTC is only a device to explain people's openness to help in the quest, other than that the guy could've died crossing the street, and the story wouldn't have been affected.

Having said all that, the director is very capable and some scenes are good to the point they give you goosebumps (again, Bullock and the kid gave great performances), and that wouldn't have been possible without the boring scenes, which could've been better, but do their job well.