Review No.21: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Two weeks ago when the Oscar nominations were read out there were some audible woops whenever a nomination for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was announced. The film ended with two nominations one for Best Picture and one for Best Supporting Actor for the brilliant Max Von Sydow but we'll get to him in a moment. After watching the film it's really no surprise that it was nominated for those films as it stars former Oscar winners Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, deals with how 9/11 affected the families of the victims and is directed by Stephen Daldry who never fails to get a film in the Best Picture nominations however poor it is. Though the film does star Hanks, Bullock along with a cavalcade of other famous faces the star of the show is fourteen year old Thomas Horn who plays Oskar Schell a boy trying to cope with the loss of his father in 9/11 and who finds a key that may unlock something that will lead to a mystery to do with his departed dad. Oskar is no ordinary boy though and as we are lead to believe suffers from a form of autism as he must bring a tambourine alongside him at all times as he visits everybody in New York with the surname Black thinking one of them will have a connection to the key. During his search he gets his grandmother's lodger, played by Von Sydow, to accompany him despite the fact that this man doesn't speak we the audience know who he is straight away. Meanwhile through flashbacks Hanks, who plays the dad, earns his pay check as we learn why Oskar is so keen to cling on to a piece of his father and what place his mother played by Bullock has to play in his search.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close proves that if you campaign hard for a film to be nominated at the Oscars it will get a Best Picture nod no matter how bad it is. The main problem with the film is that Thomas Horn is both annoying and obnoxious as Oskar a character we are supposed to sympathise with and go on a journey with. After reading some backstory on Horn it seems that this was his first film as producer Scott Rudin cast him after seeing him as a contestant on a junior edition of the game show Jeopardy. It really shows that the boy has not acted before and for a film that relies on its child actor to be the main attraction someone who has some experience with films would've been more appropriate. I feel this was also quite a hard book to adapt as anything narrated from the point of view of a child who has a slight learning difficulty is going to require a tough screenplay but once again I feel the film failed in this respect. Technically the film looks good but that's down to the work of veteran cinematographer Chris Menges, who previously worked on such classics as Kes and The Mission, who makes us see the world through Oskar's eyes whether we want to or not. As for the adult cast each of them gets to pop up from time to time and do a bit of acting whether that be John Goodman's kindly doorman or Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright as a warring married couple while even Hanks and Bullock don't have much to do. The only shining light in this cloudy picture is Von Sydow whose mute lodger and sometime companion to Oskar is the sole compelling character and one which you wish was around more. In a film full of obvious clichés and in-your-face performances it is Von Sydow who gives a subtle and well-judge turn as this very sad man trying to make amends for past sins to the extent you wish the roles were reversed so he got to talk all the time and Oskar would just shut up. Well done to Rudin, Daldy et al for the Best Picture nomination but as you can tell I really don't think this film deserves to be recognised alongside the rest of its fellow nominees.

Verdict: A great performance from Von Sydow and some good cinematography just about saves this melodramatic claptrap from being the worse film of the year so far and so for those two plus points it gets 4/10