Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
(2
hrs. & 9 min. in color)
The movie industry has
learned how, after the better part of a century, to get convincing performances
out of children. They seem to get better
and better in fact with time. Here we
have that rare instance of a child not only creating a viable and strong
character but one who virtually carries the entire picture, something just any
child actor could not be counted upon to do, however talented and well
trained. Two thumbs up and high fives
for the casting department!
His name is Thomas
Horn. Except for one interlude of just a
few minutes duration, the entire story is told from the point of view of his elementary
school age boy named Oskar, brilliant beyond his years, an IQ almost off the
charts. He is in just about every scene;
we are locked into his state of mind and see things through his eyes. Each happening he witnesses, each stimulus to
which he is exposed, each crisis he incurs is processed by his criteria alone. There is no overview, no commentary, no
narration but his. And yet we walk away
feeling far more wise and enlightened than when we started.
Whatever the movie’s title refers
to, it most fittingly describes the boy.
At first you are likely to feel greatly affronted by his brash,
in-your-face personality and imagination, his raw antagonism, his screaming
fits and cunning devices. He is a kid
who is so intelligent that he imagines all kinds of dangers and threats that
the average person would take in stride – rides on subways, swinging on
playground swing sets, even crossing busy streets, etc. He is obsessed over safety. His loving father (Tom Hanks) once had him
examined for possible Asperger’s Disease, something that afflicts “people who
are smarter than anyone else but can’t run straight.” Actually he is just an unusually gifted child
whose imagination works overtime. Yes,
he will be an affront at first. But I
suggest you follow and stick with him on his tumultuous journey. Believe me, there are immeasurable rewards
awaiting you for your persistence.
Such a journey could prove
gripping in any set of depicted circumstances, but what makes this screen gem
so remarkable is the fact that Oskar must take on nothing less than the
disaster of 9/11, which claims the life of that beloved father and mentor and
turns his personal universe on its head with almost shattering force. He finds himself chosen by fate to be the
last person to hear his father’s voice on the telephone answering machine
before the World Trade tower in which the father is trapped collapses into a
mountain of rubble on the TV screen. Such
a tragedy would be more than enough for any child, but for a youngster who already
lives in fear of risk, disquieted by the noise and stridency of life in his
native Manhattan and fanatically attached to the notion that there must be a
scientific explanation for everything, the trauma and challenge are nothing
short of colossal. The question posed is
how a child like Oscar can work through this unearthly horror on his own terms.
What helps him is the
discovery of a key among his father’s possessions, one that he believes his Dad
has left him as an incitement to the kind of inquiry on which he thrives. His extensive, frantic and at times panicky
search all over the city for the lock into which the key fits constitutes the
main body of the tale, a search that leads to some astounding results.
There are three grownups
who play a big part in helping him on his journey, all of them superbly
portrayed without stealing the show. (As
I have said, the entire picture belongs to Thomas Horn.) One is the father himself (Hanks), a jeweler,
with a family history made blurry by the Second World War. He takes his son on various “expeditions”
without ever having to leave their neighborhood, pushing him just enough but
not too fast and not too far at a time. This
is a father that just about any one of us would have been pleased to have had. The almost perfect rapport between him and his
son, so vividly portrayed, contributes enormously to the sense of shock and
loss we share with Oscar after the 9/11 tragedy. Then there is his mother (Sandra Bullock), a
working woman who is tested almost beyond the limits of her sanity over her
husband’s death and her son’s extremely furious rebellion. She must gather up all her inner resources to
take on the role of a single, widowed parent.
She must find a way at last to penetrate the bewildering mind of her
son, a mind the father knew how to connect with so astutely. And finally, Oscar has a most unusual
encounter with an elderly mute man (Max von Sydow, brilliant as always) living
in his grandmother’s apartment across the street. The interplay of these two decades-apart
characters provides us with the film’s choicest moments of humor and moves the
story toward its eventual resolution.
“Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close,” one of the nine movies Oscar nominated for Best Picture a
few months ago, is a marvel of directing by Stephan Daldry and scripting by
Eric Roth from a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.
There are harsh segments to be gotten through; the film demands much of
us emotionally speaking, but before it is all over the quality of mercy flows
in many directions, back and forth, up and down and sideways. It keeps snug company with “Hugo” (recently
reviewed in this blog) in extolling a child’s yen for discovery. Go, go,
go! Parents especially!
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website: enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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