Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
1/28/12
For
some people, it will always be “too soon” to “deal” with the 9/11 terror
attacks on film. I give a pass to anyone who lost family members,
was there that day or even lives in one of the affected cities. But
for the rest of us, I’ve never been able to grasp the hubris that demands
that “our” tragedy be considered “special” and kept off-limits from all
the ways in which we process our existence, from gallows humor to fictional
examination, through which every other global tragedy is inevitably filtered.
I’ve noticed that the media in general and film critics in particular have
proven to be quite protective of the subject, in part because for a while
it was verboten among liberals to suggest that anything heroic happened
on that day because that suggestion gave strength to President George W.
Bush much as the prayers of his subjects power Clash
of the Titans’ Zeus. But it really is time to stop grinding that
ax: yes, 9/11 has a particular power for everyone who’s old enough
to remember their own experiences that day (for 99.9% of everybody, the
heart-wrenching experience of hearing about it on the news), and that’s
fair game for writers and filmmakers to consider the same as every other
tragedy. I make this stump speech because Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close, director Stephen Daldry and writer Eric Roth’s adaptation
of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, arrives amidst a certain amount of
critical backlash for “not being 9/11 enough”. Too bad, because while
the movie’s reach sometimes exceeds its grasp, and a key change made at
the behest of test audiences seems to have been to the film’s detriment,
Close is a wonderfully acted meditation on grief, parenting and
human connection that wrung more than its fair share of tears out of me.
And, yes, some of them were precisely because of how intimately acquainted
we all became with the horrifying circumstances of the deaths of 2.753
people on September 11, 2001.
Oskar
Schell (Thomas Horn) is a precocious child, possibly suffering from Asperger’s
Syndrome, still reeling from the death of his father Thomas (Tom Hanks)
a year earlier when the World Trade Center was toppled by the 9/11 terrorists.
His mother Linda (Sandra Bullock) hasn’t been able to reach him, and he
feels his connection to his beloved Dad slipping away. Oskar walks
into his father’s closet, where everything remains untouched, and accidentally
knocks over a blue vase that shatters to reveal an envelope containing
a key. He is struck with an epiphany: his father used to send
him on scavenger hunts designed to test his deductive powers and force
the fearful child to step outside his limitations, and this must be another.
So he begins a quest, carefully hidden from his mother, to track down the
lock the key opens, believing some kind of message from his father lies
on the other side. On the envelope is written a single word, “Black”,
and Oskar takes it to be a name. He assembles a list of the hundreds
of Blacks in New York’s many phone books and resolves to visit them all,
showing them the key until someone admits to knowing his father and shows
him where the lock is. The first name on his list is Abby Black (Viola
Davis), who he meets as her husband is moving out of their home.
As he goes through the list, he finds that everyone has a story, many of
them sad, but that none of them have anything to do with his father.
He has another fateful meeting when he stops by the home of his beloved
Grandmother (Zoe Caldwell) and finds that while she’s not there, her mysterious
Renter (Max von Sydow) is: he has not spoken in decades, only writing
short notes or holding up one hand tattooed “Yes” or the other, “No”.
Oskar breaks down and tells him everything, and soon The Renter has joined
him on his quest, but while the journey will bring out family secrets and
forge connections with hundreds of strangers, can anything really make
sense of Thomas’ senseless death?
It’s
to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’s credit that it doesn’t
try to go all August Rush on 9/11:
it’s only human to seek comfort in the notion that “everything happens
for a reason”, an inclination Oskar’s condition amplifies. But Close
isn’t about a higher plan guiding human events: instead, it’s about
the idea that amazing things could happen if everyone met everyone else
and really shared a moment of connection. And it’s about parenting.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie quite so concerned with a parent’s
duty to give their child the tools to face challenges once they’re gone.
Thomas recognized that Oskar sees the world differently than most people,
and the Expeditions he sent him on gave him a template for solving problems
by meeting people, asking questions and overcoming his fears. The
movie takes all that one step too far at the end, and it’s really at its
best when it side-steps the temptation for Answers and sticks to its characters,
all the better to let its outstanding cast shine.
He
hasn’t really gotten his due, perhaps because he’s not what people who
(unlike me) have read the book pictured or because his background as a
Jeopardy! wiz kid makes the casting seem on-the-nose, but Horn is
sensational in his acting debut as Oskar. There’s a tremendous amount
of really raw emotion and huge chunks of dialog, sometimes thick with REALLY
raw emotion, and he just nails the vulnerability of the character in a
way most experienced actors would struggle to match. Hanks does what
he does, providing the essential goodness that’s at the core of his screen
persona to make Thomas the Perfect Father everyone believes him to be without
having to show us that much evidence of it. And Bullock, in her first
role since winning the Oscar for The Blind Side
and then going into a brief period of Tabloid Seclusion, is as emotionally
authentic as I’ve ever seen her. Linda disappears for a long stretch
in the middle of the movie, and there’s a nice revelation at the end that
at least tells you where she’s been, but I was saddened to learn that scenes
showing her sparking a new romance with fellow 9/11 widower James Gandolfini
were left on the cutting room floor because test audiences, I suppose,
demanded that Tom Hanks be mourned forever. While the movie does
a pretty good job picking up the pieces, her absence does create an uncomfortable
sense that poor traumatized Oskar is a latchkey kid to boot… There
are great supporting performances laying all over the place too, led by
Von Sydow, who speaks volumes without saying a word (it’s amazing how easy
it is not to notice that fact, so expressive is he with those hands and
that notepad). Davis is terrifically raw in a smaller role, and Jeffrey
Wright is absolutely pitch-perfect in a key scene late in the movie.
I found
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close to be surprisingly restrained
given all the elements in play (especially the famously melodramatic Eric
Roth writing the script), and while it doesn’t hit all its marks, it’s
quite emotionally satisfying, particularly to people who enjoy just watching
great actors act. And, you know, if they lost you at “9/11”, there’s
certainly no reason to buy a ticket. |
