Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I confess, the first time I watched this movie, I didn’t like it. I felt Thomas Horn’s performance as the young protagonist overwrought and abrasive. Add tragedy and it felt too much. 

But, something drew me back and after subsequent viewings, I embraced the boy with an Asperger’s-type syndrome, a boy who, by society’s standards is precocious and socially awkward. He’s not a typical boy and that’s the point. 

But some movies I dislike at first become my favorites. This is one.

Perhaps my initial angst against it had to do with its 9/11 backdrop.

Oh, dear, I know where this is going. 

Except I didn’t.

But, had I known the subject, I wouldn’t have watched it.

Ergo, the conundrum: watch movies based on trailers, sound bites or synopsis to learn if it’s a movie I should devote time to, but therefore taint my experience outside the intended storytelling process—or—risk a few hours and watch movies as the writer and director intended, with no biases on my part.

I prefer the latter.

First, I can’t un-know what I’ve seen and heard before watching a movie and that affects how I experience the story. Show me scenes of a character on an island in a story about a dangerous sea journey and my angst for him to survive vanishes. I already know he doesn’t drown. Good for him but I’ve been robbed of a thrilling experience.

Second, I risk missing an engaging or even awed experience because I’ve predetermined which movie subjects I do and don’t like. Like movies about tragic events where I slump in protest of their sadness before I’ve even given them a chance to be otherwise.

I get the irony here.

I caution against reading a movie review in a movie review about how not reading a review made a difference. But if your curiosity wins, stay with me.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about a precocious nine-year-old amateur inventor Oskar, played by Thomas Horn. Horn’s performance succeeds in mixing our angst with our endearment and we leave the theater wondering how he will fair in his real-life future. We believe that Thomas is Oskar. Tom Hanks plays perfectly as Oskar’s patient locksmith father, but Sandra Bullock’s miscasting as the boy’s mother marks the only blight in this otherwise deeply touching story.

Her performance lacks the emotion we expect for the situation and that, coupled with her character’s seemingly implausible but later explained actions, yank us from the story and put us in the real world—the one place a moviegoer doesn’t belong. Though a moderate distraction, it’s Oskar’s journey in an environment he doesn’t mesh that carries the story and ultimately satisfies our yearning to find the humanity in our world where horrors really happen. 

Movies deserve an unbiased exploration.

Some of them inexplicably nudge us into giving them a second chance. The best ones nestle in our minds and resurface unwittingly—a captivating experience every time.

Nominated for two Oscars, this 2011 movie won eight awards and earned 23 nominations.

Director: Stephen Daldry

Writers: Eric Roth (screenplay), Jonathan Safran Foer (novel)

Stars: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock

IMDB: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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