Film Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Rated PG (mild themes and coarse language). 129 minutes. Directed by Stephen Daldry. Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Verdict: Lovers of great drama will be richly-rewarded by this compelling exploration of grief, hope and the power of imagination.

One of the major issues involved with making a film about the events of September 11 is the fact that the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center were so widely broadcast – and witnessed by people around the world – in real time. Most of us remember where we were and how we felt – and the analogy at the time (an attempt, perhaps, to make sense of the incomprehensible horror), was that it was like watching a movie.

The challenge, then, for filmmakers taking on “the worst day” is as simple as it is complicated: what are you going to tell us about this preposterous act of terrorism against a country’s civilians that we haven’t already been told? How, ten years later, are you going to further illuminate the events and/or the lasting legacy of what happened on September 11?
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn, pictured) is an intelligent and sensitive young boy whose extraordinary imagination and curiosity are nurtured by his father Thomas (Tom Hanks) through joyfully complex discovery expeditions throughout New York City. A year after Thomas is killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, Oskar enters his father’s room again and inadvertently discovers a key in a small envelope with the word ‘Black’ written on it. Convinced that the key will unlock something that will bring him closer to his father, Oskar embarks on an expedition to discover what, exactly, the key will unlock.

Mr Daldry (The Reader, The Hours, Billy Elliott) is in commanding form in this difficult, powerful and involving film – and just like he did with a 14-year-old Jamie Bell in Billy Elliott, elicits an astonishing performance from his young lead. Rarely offscreen, young Thomas Horn’s acting debut is reason alone to see this film. Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) is great as Oskar’s mother, and her scenes with her young son are powerfully-realised studies of immense personal devastation, just like the ones we imagine might have taken place all over New York City on September 11 and, more than likely for those directly affected, every day since. There is also excellent support from Max von Sydow (The Exorcist) and Viola Davis (The Help) as two unlikely co-conspirators in Oskar’s seemingly impossible journey to find a single lock.

Unlike Paul Greengrass’s almost forensic take on what happened to United Airlines Flight 93 in United 93 (2006), Mr Daldry celebrates the unlikely, abstract, yet psychologically involving nature and structure of Mr Roth’s adaptation of Mr Safran Foer’s 2005 novel. What emerges, slowly and painfully, is that even in the face of immense destruction, there is always opportunity to find hope – even optimism – for how the events of the past might help influence a wiser, deeper, more fully-informed appreciation of our future.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.