Extremely loud & a little sentimental

Film maker have always used key moments in history to make a statement. In 10 years since 09-11 there have been 4 movies to tackle this subject. Stephen Daldry is offering takes the human drama approach with some success.

 

OnSeptember 11, Oscar schell (Thomas Horn) mysteriously leaves his school early while his mother Linda (Sandra Bullock) is still at work. When Oscar gets home, he finds 5 messages from his father saying that he is in the World Trade Center on the 105th floor of the North Tower.  In the next few seconds Oscar learns of the Twin Towers attack by seeing footage on the TV news. Oscar starts looking in the New York phone book for the name BLACK and finds 200 families with the last name BLACK; he then decides to visit all of them one by one to see if they knew his father.
 

The title "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close “makes clear what we, the audience, are supposed to feel, but in reality, It is a manipulative film.  The movie looks directly at the emotional emptiness left in the world’s heart after 9/11, by focusing specifically on a young boy, we are supposed to feel very strongly and emotionally about 9/11 to re-memorize this very sad moment, but almost the only thing we see is Oscar desperately looking to find some information about his father. Give us the facts please and let us make our own decisions.

 

Flashback reveals an intimate relationship between Oscar and his father. When his father is taken from him, Oscar’s life is shattered, leaving him alone with his mother. However some of these scenes are rather unoriginal, a fault that lies clearly with the director.

The public has pre-existing sentiments about the 9/11 tragedy which was not assumed in the movie.

 

The movie fails a little here by focusing so much on Oscar and his own intimate feeling of loss. We know, who watched the global disaster unfold, just how much trauma was caused at the deaths of almost three and a half thousand people.

 

 All the actors gave really good performances especially Oscar.  It is not the actors fault that audiences have not responded to the movie; it's probably just that the audience expected something mysterious and different, after the first ten minutes.

Thomas Horn gave a rich performance with feeling and love. I’m very impressed with his performance as Oskar. He played a fantastic role as an autistic child; It's not every day we see a movie about a youth’s experience with 9/11, is it?

 Sandra Bullock, and Tom Hanks offer up pretty solid performances. At times Sandra Bullock seemed like she was overacting or forcing it, while at others her performance was very good.

 

 

Thomas Horn’s grandfather Max Von Sydow had a great role too. This is a man, whose entire character’s history is drawn onto his face, carrying emotional scenes to great effect.  His comic timing was a pleasure to watch.

 

Not the best movie of the year; but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Thomas Horn’s honest performance Stands out, along with Max Von Sydow’s excellent comic turn. ***