Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 2011
I don’t know exactly why this movie got to the top of my Netflix queue, but maybe they recommended it or I saw that it had been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar for 2011. I couldn’t watch it all at once and instead watched it in maybe 4 pieces while on the train. That’s not an ideal way to watch a movie, but it does allow me to give a movie all of my attention, and I think it worked out well with this movie to take a few breaks.
The beginning is very heavy as we are introduced to a somewhat autistic kid struggling with the loss of his father on 9/11. Death of a loving father (played by Tom Hanks, so how much more loving could you get?), 9/11, and a kid with some tough mental challenges don’t make for a real light movie, and the beginning is particularly rough. It gets a little better as we go on and the kid meets a lot of different people as he goes on a search through New York for the answer to a perhaps completely unimportant mystery.
The movie is still frustrating but there are some good performances, particularly by Viola Davis who can play sad better than anyone in Hollywood I think. In the end, I liked the movie a little more (not as depressing), but I also felt like it was being emotionally manipulative and more than a little unrealistic. A lot of the movie depends on the kid at the center, and it isn’t easy relying a child actor like that. There is a lot of voiceover as he goes through his thought process and tells us about his father and “the worst day.” Some critics really ravaged the movie, while some people really liked it. I can sort of see both sides, and while I like that they didn’t keep it as dark as it started out to be, I didn’t necessarily like where it ended up either. People who like tearjerkers will probably enjoy it. It was a little too melodramatic for me.
Written: 07 Mar 2013