Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Instead, we get a movie that is far too nice and pat, and doesn't dig strongly enough into its own material. If features two big names above the title (Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, specifically), but they are given so little to do in the movie, this must have been like a paid holiday for them. The movie's not really about them, anyway. It's about young Oskar (Thomas Horn, a child Jeopardy champion making his acting debut), a 10-year-old boy who has Asperger's syndrome. I've been seeing a lot of characters in movies with Asperger's syndrome lately, leading me to believe that it is Hollywood's current "disease du jour". Oskar is a smart, but heavily withdrawn boy. He's inquisitive, has a real eye for detail, likes to figure out complex patterns and riddles, and is obviously bright, but has a hard time relating to other people. We witness in flashbacks how his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), used to encourage his son's inquisitive nature by sending him on scavenger hunts across New York City. This was done not only to to fuel young Oskar's thirst for knowledge, but to also allow him to explore the outside world, and meet people.
Thomas dies on September 11th, which Oskar refers to constantly as "the dark day". Since then, he has become emotionally distant to his grieving mother (Sandra Bullock), and spends most of his time locked away in a secret shrine he has built devoted to his father, the centerpiece of which is an answering machine containing six different messages Thomas left before he died. One day, Oskar works up the courage to go into his dad's closet to look through the belongings he left behind. Amongst those belongings is a small key in an envelope labeled simply "Black". Thinking that the label must refer to someone's name, and that this person must have known his father and knows what the key is for, Oskar begins an exhaustive search across New York City, tracking down every person he can find in the phone book with the last name of Black. This leads to a number of encounters, where young Oskar meets various people who are either grieving in some way (either through September 11th, or other means), or spark a special relationship with the boy.
These sequences where Oskar tracks these people down seem forced, and don't have the slightest bit of realism to them. First of all, there's the obvious issue of building your entire story around the idea of a small boy going out on his own into the city, and encountering numerous strangers, seemingly without his mother knowing. Yes, the movie does address this issue at the end, by throwing in a last minute revelation about how the boy was really in no danger whatsoever the entire time he was going off on his own, meeting these people. But it feels so completely shoehorned in, it didn't calm my nerves about just how wrong the concept sounds. It simply seemed like a manipulative way to explain a logical hole in the story. And then there's the fact that the people little Oskar encounters don't seem like real people, nor do their conversations sound honest. Take the very first person the boy meets on his quest, a woman (Viola Davis) whose husband is in the process of leaving her when Oskar shows up to ask her about his father and the key he found. Their conversation about elephant tears sounds scripted, and doesn't have the slightest bit of plausibility behind it.
The one person Oskar does encounter during his journey that does work in the movie's favor is a mysterious old man who is renting a room in the apartment where Oskar's grandmother lives. He's referred to simply as "the Renter", and is a broken down man who hasn't spoken ever since a tragic event in his past, and communicates simply through hand signals (he has the words "yes" and "no" written on the palms of his hands), or writing down messages on a set of index cards that he always carries with him. The Renter, as portrayed by Max Von Sydow (giving the film's best performance) is portrayed as an unlikely friend and guardian to Oskar, teaching him how to conquer his fears concerning other people, and public transportation. I liked the relationship that he builds with the boy, and how the child slowly warms to him, to the point that he almost becomes a father figure.
But as soon as the Renter character and Sydow's performance leaves the movie, we're back to where we started, with an emotionally distant story anchored and narrated by a young boy who just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that the character of Oskar is supposed to be isolated and socially awkward, but the way the character is written and portrayed (I have nothing against young Thomas Horn's performance) just alienated me. I never warmed up to him, not even when he is supposed to be finally bonding with his mother. It doesn't help that Bullock hardly shows up in the movie, and that her fading relationship with her son is barely addressed. Yes, the movie once again addresses this issue at the end, but much like its explanation on how Oskar was in no real danger going off on his own and meeting strangers, it doesn't ring true. The movie is supposed to be about emotional healing, and how this boy's journey touches the lives of the people around him. But since the people keep on disappearing before we get a chance to really know them in the first place, the whole movie ends up feeling pointless. Well meaning, but ultimately pointless.
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