Movie Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Director Stephen Daldry

Year 2011

Verdict Average

I am big Tom Hanks fan. I have watched all of his movies released after 1989. I have watched ‘Splash’, ‘Bachelor Party’, ‘The Money Pit’ and ‘Big’ before 1989. I slacked in the department of movie watching from 2011. Because of that I have missed a few. My watch-list still contains ‘Larry Crowne’ and ‘Cloud Atlas’. I watched the beginning of ‘The Ladykillers’, maybe I will go back to it someday in future.

‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ was in my watch list alongside ‘Captain Phillip’ and ‘Saving Mr Banks’. Though, it took me a long time to finish this one. May be the reason being, Tom Hanks was not the protagonist.

This is a story of a young boy Oscar, who lost his father in the attacks of September 11 and was trying to cope with his grief in his own way. Oscar and his father (Tom Hanks) had a beautiful relationship. He used to plan scavenger hunts, treasure hunts, expeditions and all kind of adventures with his son. His moto was “non-stop looking”.

The day his father died, Oscar could not pick up his last call and he could not forgive himself for that. As the time passed he felt that he was going away from his father and somehow wanted to keep their unique bond alive.

One day while looking in his father’s closet, Oscar found a key inside a blue vase and an envelope with ‘Black’ written on it. He knew this key was not from any lock he was familiar with. Hereafter, he designed a plan to find the lock. This is the story of how Oscar finds the lock or rather its owner. This story also tells how, in this process of his quest and also by the outcome, he finds courage, how he strengthens his relationship with his mother and how he finally starts to heal.

How can I say something bad about a movie where a boy has lost his father and is trying cope with that fact? Other than that one element, this movie is very slow with a lot of dialogue delivered in a very fast succession by Oscar, which was quite hard to follow. Even though I was bored through most of the movie, the ending was nice and left me with a good feeling.

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