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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012)

Director: Stephen Daldry

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7 reviews

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From Time Out London

In ‘Billy Elliot’, Stephen Daldry made a film about a boy who faced down reality to find self-fulfilment. The story had its tearjerking moments but earned its happy ending through toughness. Daldry’s sentimental streak broadened with ‘The Hours’ and ‘The Reader’, and now he’s made a film about a boy who, for understandable reasons, seeks to stave off reality, set in a world that, less understandably, colludes in the deception.

Adapted from the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ is about Oskar Schell, an 11-year-old New Yorker whose father (Tom Hanks) is killed at the World Trade Center. A year after the attacks, Oskar remains traumatised, finding comfort in mementos and flights of fantasy – coping mechanisms that converge when he finds a key marked ‘Black’. Determined to find the lock it fits, he starts schlepping around the city, working his way down the Blacks in the phone book. His mother (Sandra Bullock) finds him hard work but his grandmother’s mute lodger (Max von Sydow) is intrigued.

Safran Foer’s novel was a jumble of voices, images and typographical games, dominated by Oskar’s childlike mix of naivety and wishful thinking. It’s a tricky register to translate to film, and Daldry’s reliance on voiceover is unsatisfying. There’s some interesting tension here between the verbal and the audiovisual – the limits and necessity of speech, the vital clamour of the rest. But ‘Extremely Loud…’ ultimately offers a cutesy fantasy of New York and a platitudinous account of trauma and bereavement. Less a film about communication, in the end, than one with its fingers in its ears.

Author: Ben Walters

Time Out London Issue 2165: Feb 16-22, 2012

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User reviews of this film

Paulie T said...

Posted on Mar 02 2012 16:15 Extremely shit and increbibly schmaltzy.

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Paulie T said...

Posted on Mar 02 2012 16:15 Extremely shit and increbibly schmaltzy.

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scrumpyjack said...

Posted on Mar 01 2012 20:30 Second walk out in 2 months. Odd boy you don't know knocks on your door and demands to come in, have a iced coffee and take a photo of you crying? Happens to me EVERYDAY! The bizarre rant ON MEETING Von Sydow on 50min was enough for me. Terrible.

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jaycee said...

Posted on Feb 24 2012 06:42 Despite a good performance from the child at the centre, this is a hideousl fil, full of whimsical stereotypes and gross sentimentality.It just keeps getting more awful as it goes on. Viola Davis is its only saving grace.

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ARCHGATE said...

Posted on Feb 22 2012 11:03 Extremely boring and emotionally vacant. The boy was as annoying as a screaming toddler on the underground. I hated the pretentiousness of this film.

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john o sullivan said...

Posted on Feb 18 2012 09:09 The hate this film is generating is frightning
And its flawed particulary the endings
But its a brave attempt to portray an Aspberger/Autistic child struggl;ing to cope with loss.
The central performance by Thomas Horn is as good as Clare Danes turn in Temple Graundin which also attempted to play someone on the edge of the autistic spectrum
Sure Tom Hanks is too good to be tue but isnt this based on Oskers memories
ive seen all 9 best pic noms and this film desreves its place and finishes a distance in front of at least 5 of the other films
To quote any oxymoron dramatically real

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Caro said...

Posted on Dec 14 2011 18:44 Extremely good and incredibly moving

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