Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Overview

Why do films make us cry? Usually, and most obviously, it's because they move us in some way, tugging on our emotional heartstrings through subjects like love, death, family and horses. Sometimes, too, it's because they manage to surprise us. Just as occasionally it's because they're so craptastically awful that crying is the only way to feel something real again (I'm looking at you, Jack and Jill).

The key thing, though, and this really can't be stressed enough, is that a movie should never set out to make its audiences cry. That's when things become cynical. That's when people leave the band shouting, "You used to be all about the music, man." That’s when LeBron chooses Miami over New York. Bottom line: it's just not cool.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) is a movie that's just not cool. It's drama by numbers and quite possibly the most contrived grab for an Oscar since Crash. Based on the bestselling book by Jonathan Safran Foer, it tells the story of 11-year-old Oskar Schell (in an impressive debut by Thomas Horn) and his agonising attempts to make sense of the loss of his father following the devastating attacks of September 11.

When Oksar discovers a key hidden in his late father’s wardrobe with nothing but the surname 'Black' affixed to it, he embarks upon an uncompromising search of the five boroughs of New York to track down its owner by identifying and then interviewing every single 'Black' in the phone book. It doesn't take Oskar long to realise, however, that "everybody lost somebody or something" that day, and so begins this supposed tale of redemption in what the producers insist is not a 9/11 movie but rather a movie about "every day since".

Bollocks.

Daldry's two-hour indulgence uses 9/11 as a constant emotional trigger, peppering the story with regular (and repeated) answering machine messages left by Oskar's father as the building blazed, buckled and finally crumbled around him. When that's not enough, we're shown photos of some of the hapless souls who chose to jump rather than burn. It's an incomprehensible attempt to remind us about something we're quite clearly never going to forget, and seen through a child's eyes it becomes so reductionist we're not even afforded the possibility of understanding or context.

On the positive side, Horn proves incredibly accomplished for someone of his age and his portrayal of the hyperintelligent, borderline Asperger's-afflicted character is as impressive as the character is unlikeable. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock play Oskar's parents, but neither receives enough screen time to make any sort of meaningful impact, just as Max von Sydow's performance is rendered mute, quite literally, courtesy of a character trait that's entirely dispensable. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is an emotionally charged movie that will absolutely make audiences cry, but the calculated nature of it renders those tears more bitter than sweet.