“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” Endearingly Good

In Theaters: December 25, 2011
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 (for for emotional thematic material, some disturbing images, and language)
Genres:
Adaptation, Drama
Distributors:
Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution
Run Time:
2 hours 9 minutes

Director: Stephen Daldry

JJ Rating: B+

Thomas Horn (Oskar Schell) loses his father on 9/11. Thomas wants his dad back. He finds a clue to something important and goes on a city wide trek to where it’ll end up. He meets a lot of people and figures a lot out about himself. An adventure to find himself. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

8 Good Things About This Film

Thomas Horn did a fantastic job and even though I found him to be annoying at times, I understood his character’s frustration. I think he did a is a great actor. He’ll get better and better, for sure. Someone to look out for.

Sandra Bullock gots the crying acting down. I didn’t cry each time, but did feel her emotion.

Viola Davis continues to astound me. From when I saw her in Doubt to now I have been happy that she continues to show that she was worthy of praise.

Max von Sydow was silent like the actors in The Artist. He did it in color. Making his part almost better just because silent and in color is far more clever than in black and white. He did a good job with his facial expressions.

Horn and von Sydow shared several scenes, but there is one where von Sydow is in the cab. His silent (well all of his parts are silent) facial expressions were powerful.

Every scene has power and I don’t know if that’s tiring or not. I enjoyed it. I liked how each scene had a reason for existing, instead of scenes that are filler moments. The Grey had scenes were there were silence and thinking that lasted way too long. Nothing like that in this film.

I like how there are films about touching moments between random people. If people were able to have such moments in real life things might work out better for the world.

On a silly note, I like when Thomas Horn and John Goodman had scenes together. They would be really crass with one another in a facetious manner. Humorous.

1 Bad Thing About This Film

It is a bit long and I felt it. Which contradicts my comment about how each scene is important. What I meant about important is that the director (Stephen Daldry) created that feel of importance, which doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is feeling that the film is long. I can’t stand films that go on longer than they should.

I dislike how some people have wrote reviews for this film. It’s one thing to dislike the film due to thinking it pushes for you to cry (which I don’t think it did), but to state that the main character (the boy) is obnoxious by clearly ignoring that he had a mental disability is down right stupid. The film never stated out right that he had an issue, but it’s obvious that the child had a mild forum of autism (though they did touch on it, slightly). Nick Schiller and Joey Shapiro on Flixster talked about how annoying the main character was under full knowledge that the character had a mental disorder. The prejudice one has against such is annoying and reviewers that can’t understand that are not worthy of being trusted.

I would argue against anyone that thinks Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is trying to force people to cry. The subject matter is about a child going through a loss that he doesn’t fully understand. He deals with it in his own way. He is emotional. The film is emotional. But the film is not trying to make the viewer cry every moment that the characters cry. What foolish stupidity are reviewers dabbling in when they think that? OMG willikers.

Worthy of buying for me. Due to Sandra Bullock, cause I like her and because I like Viola Davis AND, of course, Thomas Horn.


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