By OLIVIA QUATTRONE
When a film has the combination of an interesting story line, an adorable kid, an eye catching title, and the talent of award winning actors Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, one would expect it to be a winner. However, in the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the inclusion of pretentious and unlikable characters results in failure.
The film centers around Oskar (Thomas Horn,) a curious lad whose father (Hanks, Forest Gump) loves setting up adventures for him to embark on and puzzles for him to solve. Well, all this fun does not last for long. When Oskar’s father dies in the 9/11 attacks, the audience must follow Oskar on his heavy, humorless and depressing quest for answers.
Oskar believes that a key he found in his father’s closet was meant for him, a last adventure that his father wanted him to have. He decides to drag his elderly and mysterious neighbor (Max von Sydow, Pelle the Conquerer) along for the ride. However, a secret about the neighbor is revealed, adding soap opera like drama to the film. The already melodramatic movie is dotted with scenes of Oskar verbally abusing his mother (Bullock, The Blind Side) and destroying things, just to make sure the audience is weeping the entire time.
However, I did not shed a tear in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Oskar is rude, selfish, pretentious and frankly, very annoying. As sad as the idea of a child losing his father is, the rotten brat who is Oskar almost made it impossible to feel any sympathy for him. The film is supposed to teach the viewer a lesson of acceptance, diversity and coming to terms with a loss, however, it is very hard to learn a lesson from a kid who needs one himself.
The plot holes are also a negative factor. There are things that never get explained and never add up. Many ideas that seem as if they would be important to the story are introduced, but never revisited, particularly why Oskar’s mysterious neighbor never speaks.
The little missions that Oskar’s father sets up are mentioned through out the story, however, the one mission the audience does see, something involving a sixth barge, is never explained. There is no back story on what this object is, so the viewer ends up being confused for a quarter of the movie. If the plot would have come more full circle, it could have been an intriguing story.
The actors in the film are fairly good, despite the poor subject material. Van Sydow, although he does not speak once, is the best point in the movie. He has great expression and conveys emotion better than anybody else. But, Horn’s slow speech and whiny yelling brings down the film. Three famously good actors–Hanks and Bullock and Viola Davis–barely have any screen time, which is disappointing considering how frequently they were mentioned in the trailer.
Successful in thought, a failure in execution, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close gets 1.5 out of 4 stars
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