Starring:
Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright, Hazelle Goodman and Zoe Caldwell.
Directed By:
Stephen Daldry.
Review:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was the biggest shocker at the Oscars nominations announcement as no one expected it to very well there. This is a movie that got a very dividing response from critics in a way that i don't remember, they either loved it so incredibly much or hated it to the very core. I saw it before the Oscars ceremony and yes i too didn't liked the movie at all and i think its one of the worst movies every to get nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I don't know where and how to begin talking about a this movie. Stephen Daldry made a movie called The Reader which didn't got a great response from critics but it certainly wasn't bad or mixed but above average, it got nominated over 2 of the best reviewed movies of the year but still not a bad thing. EL&IC is a entire different thing, i just can't believe Oscars voter would even consider nominating this movie. Best Picture nominations presents the best movies of the year and mainly most loved ones that had something to do with certain things while ignoring the actual best but that is a entire different debate. What i mean to say is that this is not one of the best movies of the year, if critics and audience are so divided in such extreme over a movie, i don't see a single reason why it should represent the whole year. I have always got over Academy's bad decisions mainly influenced by power and politics but this is a utter disgrace and just the worst thing they every did. I always love Academy despite that i agree and overrate their decisions but this is something i would never forget, i am very disappointed, extremely disappointing and incredibly pathetic.
Now that i dedicated a whole paragraph to that i should now talk about the movie. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a movie that tries to very sentimental and emotional but fails. It is a movie that never feels good, great or right from the very start. You feel emotionally manipulative over movies that uses certain techniques and trickery just to make the audience fall for something that really isn't there. Here surprisingly it is not there, i really don't know anything about the book at all but if they messed up with the original material just to make this movie sell on cheap manipulative emotional things than yes that is what they did yet you wont feel anything at all. The filmmakers made a cheap attempt to make a movie just for the Oscars, the Oscars bait and in order to do that they didn't do quite well enough but just wrapped a expensive wrapping in a very reckless manner over a cheap thing (sorry for using the word cheap a lot). The movie basically tells the story of a child Oskar Schell played by Thomas horn, his father Thomas is played by Tom Hanks and mother Linda played by Sandra Bullock. He is a very different child like not like anyone else, basically they tried to give a Forrest Gump touch to him but it all doesn't seem good at all. Thomas tries to involve him in these scavenger hunts he designs for Oskar for him to realize 'if things were so easy to find, they wont be worth finding'. Thomas dies in the 9/11 incident and than the whole movie revolves around Oskar trying to find why did it happened and did his father kind of left another hunt for him to find some answers.
Oskar's relation with his mother is not so good in a way he tells her 'I wish it was you'. Oskar is someone who needs answers of everything and thinks everything has to make sense and if doesn't he has to find it. I mean usually a child's mind is full of thinks because they don't know many things and they want to so they don't just stop. In this case, well he is not your ordinary child he is an alien. I was reading a review where the reviewer said something like this child doesn't talk like a child and is a miniature Woody Allen but without any humor which is really right. Oskar the character is extremely annoying he is extremely childish in his insane weird sense of maturity and the writers presents him in the worst possible way making no room for audience to have any sort of sympathy for him. Oskar sets of on a journey to find the lock on which the keys fits in that he founds in his dad's closet in a vase. It has word Black written on it so he tries to contact everyone in New York with surname Black and somehow in the end he finds Abby played by Viola. Abby's husband William is the one that keys belongs to and Oskar gets upset over the fact that there isn't something his father left for him or it isn't one of the hunts he was thinking wrong. The slightly touching moment comes in the end when he kind of come closes to his mother in a way that she helps him indirectly a lot in the hunt. The best and possibly slightly touching performance comes from the wonderful Max Von Sydow as the stranger (renter) who never speaks a word and we find it later that he is Oskar's grandfather.
It has been shot really well, i hardly remember a recent movie in New York to have utilized the city so much beautifully. The score somehow is really good by Alexander Desplat, screenplay falls flat almost entirely and direction was terrible too. This is a terrible movie that tries to force you into being emotional for something that even isn't there. With under developed and poorly shown characters you just don't know who to feel sympathetic with or when because you don't know them and you don't like them their emotional intensity doesn't quite seems to be touching you or even reaching you for that matter. And the 9/11 background it uses is just for the sake of the story which i am sorry to say is offensive for such a big tragedy to be used just for the push the movie needs in the start and then forget it. Still the ending might brings slight tears in your eyes, the one good thing.
Grade: D+
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