Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) by Zach J — 04 Jul 2013

A nine-year-old amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Rating: 8.5/10 (80%).

I don't know why I connected with this movie, I absolutely expected to hate it, but ended up loving it. Let me start with a little rant. I hated Oskar as a character, he was a selfish baby. I felt sorry for him because his dad died, and I know he had Asperger's so most of his actions weren't done on purpose, but the way he was portrayed was as a really rude and selfish character. End of rant.

This movie was directed by Stephen Daldry, who directed the extraordinarily brilliant smash film "Billy Elliot". He puts his excellent use of camera techniques to good use again for this film. The film was written by Eric Roth, who wrote one of my all time favorite movies, "Forrest Gump". The story was told alright, it was written nicely, however it was cliched horribly in places and it was too bittersweet and too self-indulgent for it's own good. It is like this movie was made, and the book was written, to capitalize on peoples emotions. While a bit plodding on the plot, it did have strong character development and believable dialogue.

The performances and the character development are what saved this movie from drowning itself. Thomas Horn, who played Oskar, actually did pretty well in the role for someone who had never acted before. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock of course gave two brilliant performances, as did Max Von Sydow, who gave the best performance of the entire film in my opinion. Plus we get a nice surprise performance from personal favorite John Goodman as Stan, the Doorman.

To conclude, this film is just way way way too bittersweet and it capitalizes too much on people's emotions. I realize I have contradicted myself several times during this review, and I did really much enjoy this film. It was a wonderful film, that kept me interested the whole time. Even made me cry here and there. Sure, there is no way that this film would ever win Best Picture, nor did it even deserve to be nominated. It is nowhere near the best film of 2011, but it was still a very watchable, excellent, and sad tale. I am a bit iffy on recommending this to people, however. It's your call. Thanks.