Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Daldry, 2011)

On the 2010 Kid's Week Edition of the television game show Jeopardy!, thirteen year-old Thomas Horn won an impressive amount of money. His charm managed to impress film producers, who subsequently cast him as Oskar Schell in 2011's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. But, much like its child star, the movie proves to be nothing more than, well... extremely loud and incredibly close to an abysmal failure.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Stephen Daldry, 2011), based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel of the same name, is an overly emotional drama film about the effects of September 11th, 2001 on a young boy named Oskar Schell. Oskar, a self-proclaimed inventor and Francophile, lives in New York City with his mother (Sandra Bullock) and father (Tom Hanks). Oskar offers a sporadic narration, accredited to the character's OCD, that describes how on "the worst day" of 9/11 his father died working in the Twin Towers.

Unable to cope with his death, Oskar builds a shrine dedicated to his father, listening to messages left on the voicemail from that day. When he goes into his parents room one year after "the worst day", Oskar finds a blue vase, which shatters when it falls from the high shelf. In the glass shards, Oskar finds an envelope. That envelope holds a key, unlabeled but with his father's handwriting on the envelope. Oskar discovers that this key was meant for him, and begins a journey throughout the city to find the lock that fits this key.

His harrowing travels takes him to several residents of the city, including a recently divorced wife (Viola Davis). He also finds a "mysterious renter" (Max von Sydow) in the apartment of his grandmother- a supposedly mute man who communicates through writing on paper, and showing "yes" or "no" written on his hands. The man begins to join Oskar on his journey, becoming his only friend and showing him how to relax while trying to find the truth behind the strange key.

In part because the film follows the perspective of the young Oskar, the movie is hard to follow through all of its nauseating cinematography and choppy editing. The story opens too many story lines, so it's hard to keep track of who's important and who's not.

And worst of all, as the topic of 9/11 still resonates on a deep emotional level for millions of Americans,  the movie chomps off more than it can chew. Though it tries, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fails to match the highly emotional impact of the incident. The film is not emotional enough where it matters, and too emotional in scenes where it doesn't.

Despite an Oscar-worthy line up of actors, none of them receive enough screen time to leave an impression. In particular, Max von Sydow's excellent performance as the renter has such high potential. But, it's hard to really commend von Sydow when all we see is the bratty performance of an annoying lead actor. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock also fail to attract attention due to their limited presence in the movie, and offer little emotional appeal when they do finally get their due.

The scenes of travel across New York City offer impressive landscapes, but the filming is so jumpy that it's hard to really notice. Also, the repetitiveness of Oskar's travels quickly grows old, as the audience keeps seeing the same scenes over and over again. Oskar is afraid to do something, the renter helps him get through it, repeat. The repetitiveness is enough to drive the viewer crazy.

While the director does have a hard subject matter to tackle, Stephen Daldry still could have produced a more emotionally resounding film from the novel's interesting premise. But, he didn't, so the result is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

One and a half out of five stars.