Methodically, Oskar starts to make his way down his long list, and eventually takes on a helper in the form of a mysterious, mute boarder (a wonderful Max Von Sydow) from the across-the-street apartment of his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell). One of the first people Oskar meets is Abby Black (Viola Davis), who is touched by his mission. It’s partly emotionally utilitarian - a way of extending and keeping alive and vital his connection to his dad - but Oskar also figures that by contacting every person with said surname he can unlock the last of his father’s many elaborately constructed “special expeditions,” intellectual games in which they used to participate together. After discovering a mysterious key in his dad’s closet in an envelope marked “Black,” Oskar sets out on a quixotic journey through the five boroughs trying to ascertain the lock it fits. With his mother Linda (Bullock), with whom he was already less close, reduced to an uncommunicative wreck, Oskar lives in private with his grief, having secreted away the answering machine tape from that fateful morning which contains a half dozen increasingly frantic messages from his father. A wildly bright, anxiety-stricken nine-year-old quite possibly stricken with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome (“Tests weren’t definitive,” he says), Oskar narrates his heartache and pain in unswerving and almost omniscient fashion. On what he habitually refers to as “the worst day,” Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) lost his doting father Thomas (Hanks), who was also his best friend, in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. The film unfolds in 2002, in New York City. If families and general audiences looking for a dewy big screen drama have but one holiday choice, though, they might be more apt to select one of the movies with animals ( War Horse, We Bought a Zoo) rather than one focusing on the emotional aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Straight out of the gate, Extremely Loud, which opens in limited release on Christmas Day and wide on January 20, 2012, should find its commercial prospects bolstered by the participation of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock as the adolescent parents’ subjects, in what amount to supporting roles. In reality, it’s a preening and somewhat contrived film, a tapestral effort of skilled tradecraft brought to bear upon a self-serious framework of overt manipulations.īelow-the-line, the film often bears the hallmarks of a classy, well-ordered production. An adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, the movie purports to filter anguish and the experience of loss through the prism of a quirky young boy. Stephen Daldry has previously made three feature films and been Oscar-nominated as Best Director for each of them, so Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close demands to be taken seriously, and certainly will be by many awards pundits and critics.
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