Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

A few weeks ago I received the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly close to review, courtesy of Warner Brothers.  I read the blurb on the back and was pretty excited, this looks like a really good film.  Here's what it said -

Adapted from the acclaimed bestseller by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell, an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. Now, as Oskar crosses the five New York boroughs in quest of the missing lock-–encountering an eclectic assortment of people who are each survivors in their own way--he begins to uncover unseen links to the father he misses, to the mother who seems so far away from him and to the whole noisy, dangerous, discombobulating world around him.

Oh interesting, I thought.  I must make sure I sit and watch that without being distracted, so it stayed on the shelf for a week or two and my anticipation grew and then finally dh and I had a night in and we watched the movie and sadly for me it was a big let down.  I am not sure if I built it up to much in my head or if I am not intelligent enough for the film but it bored me.  After about an hour I was ready to turn the film off but dh said we should persist and yes it did get better and I even enjoyed the ending.  There were a couple of parts in the movie that had my heart in my throat and a tear in my eye but in general I just sat there with a feeling of 'why?'.

I can't dispute that the acting is superb, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock play the parents and do so really well but the star of the movie is the little boy Thomas Horn who plays the central character, 11 year old Oskar who has Aspergers Syndrome and sees the world in a completely different way to you or I might.

Oskar takes a very unusual journey around the 5 boroughs of New York and meets some very eclectic people on his way, including his long lost German Grandad who is a recluse and refuses to speak, this makes for some interesting interactions. But in my opinion the film just sort of goes on and on without any real sparks of interest in it.

My dh commented that the film was 'OK' but it took him  a very long time to get into it. 'Slow' was the first word that came to his mind but then he commented that the film had a sense of reality and took him back to 2001, even though much of what was going on was in the mind of one young man.

To say I was disappointed is an understatement, which is a real shame. Take a look at the trailer, it looks fab doesn't it? Maybe I need to take a second viewing.... 



This is definitely a marmite film, I have looked at loads of reviews across the web and it seems that people either love this or hate it, so I would recommend watching it and making your own mind up, we are all different after all.

Run Time:  129 minutes
Rating: 12
Main Actors: Thomas Horn, Max Von Sydow, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright & Zoe Caldwell
Director: Stephen Daldry
Screenplay Writer: Eric Roth

Disclaimer:  I was provided with the film free of charge for the purposes of this review.  I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.