This blog has
been in operation since March 2012. As
an observance of its sixth anniversary, I am doing something I have never done
before: I am republishing my review of a 2011 movie I featured shortly
afterward in the spring of 2012. My wife Ruby and I recently checked it out
from Netflix as a supplement to the book on which it is based and which she had
started reading, unaware that I had seen the film and written about it. We were both so deeply moved by the viewing,
I even more so than before, that I could not resist the urge to rerun it. Over the years it has lost none of its
magnetic appeal. The following is word
for word what appeared in that 2012 issue.
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. 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 I walk away
feeling far more wise and enlightened than when I 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 [Oscar
nominated] screen gem so remarkable is the fact that the kid 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 such as
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” 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” in
extolling a child’s yen for discovery. If
you missed it upon its original 2011 release, rent the DVD now and enjoy the
treat. It is available from
Netflix. If you saw it, rent it anyway
and see it again. The encounter between Oscar and his mother in the closing
minutes is worth its weight in gold.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
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