Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman) – It is surprising that there haven’t been more movies about 9/11. I suppose that national tragedies are too painful to relive in movie form. World Trade Center focused on firefighters trapped in the wreckage; United 93 put us on the aircraft bound for Washington, D.C. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close focuses on one family dealing with the tragedy. It is an incredibly sentimental account of one special boy’s plight to hang on to the memory of his father. Oskar is an extremely intelligent, gifted, articulate, curious boy with an adult’s mind and a child’s personality (there is one reference in the movie to the child having been tested, inconclusively, for Asperger’s syndrome). Played by newcomer, Thomas Horn, whose previous claim to fame was winning $31,000 on Jeopardy, Oskar is encouraged to be an explorer by his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks in a small role). Thomas is a New York jeweler who wanted to be a scientist, and he spends a lot of time concocting elaborate explorations for his only child. The relationship between the two is, not surprisingly, “incredibly close.” Not so with mom, Linda (played with lots of angst by Sandra Bullock who just ought to go back to playing in comedies, light drama, and chick flicks).
The movie is played in flashback, of course, where we experience “The Worst Day.” Oskar and Linda are dealing with the shock and tragedy many months later, of course. Linda is trying to move on but cannot connect with her son, who is obsessed with it and hides a dark truth from her (I’ll leave this for you to find out). Meanwhile, Oskar rummages through the house to find anything his father might have left him as a clue to solve the as-yet unresolved exploration they were working on. He finds a key inside a vase that breaks as he searches the high shelves in a bedroom. The key, which looks like it is to a safety deposit box but Thomas doesn’t know it) is in a small envelope with the word or name “Black” written on it. Oskar searches the phone books throughout the boroughs of New York to find all 400+ names and goes out in search of each person every Saturday (OK, the plot starts falling apart here). He talks to the people, tries the key in their locks, takes pictures of all of them with a camera his father never used that had come from his mysterious grandfather (who neither he nor his father ever met). Eventually, the key does lead somewhere, mostly to a sub-plot with little relevance to the film but which is necessary to move the plot along. Best of all, it leads to our meeting an estranged couple, played by the magnificent Viola Davis (Oscar-nominated for The Help) and Jeffrey Wright.
Oskar also has a warm relationship with his paternal grandmother who lives next door. She teaches him piano and communicates with him in his secret moments via walkie-talkie. Grandma has a boarder in her house when the movie starts, an old man rarely seen (played by Max von Sydow in an Academy Award-nominated performance). Through a series of circumstances, the boy meets the man, who cannot or will not speak, but with whom Oskar develops a trusting relationship. The two go out on his Saturday missions together with no success. But the boy confides his story to the man and vice versa. The interactions of the young actor, Horn, and one of the greatest and most under-appreciated actors of his era, Von Sydow, are electrifying.
It is too bad that the rest of the movie isn’t as compelling. It is melodramatic and that is just the way director Stephen Daltry (Oscar-nominated for The Reader, The Hours and Billy Elliot but not for this) wanted it, I suppose. It does capture the heartbreak of the loss of the 9/11 victims. For that, it is a cathartic experience for the audience. But that doesn’t make Loud and Close a great movie. Based on a novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, the movie is less about 9/11 and more about the relationship of a boy and his deceased father. I kept wondering why Linda didn’t seek counseling for her son, who clearly needed to share his pain as he does with strangers. Nominated for Best Picture, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will not win and doesn’t deserve to. But it is worth watching, particularly if you want a fine character study and good cry (unbelievably, I didn’t, and I’m a sucker for sentimentality).