Thomas Horn as Oskar Schell and Tom Hanks as his father Thomas Schell in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close."
Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, is intellectually precious and dripping with stylistic hiccups. It needs a director who detests the ordinary, who embraces the grand. Daldry directs as if quirk, like tension or romance, is beloved by the masses.
For a movie rushed to theaters so it could be eligible for Oscar nominations (which it did land a Best Picture nod), Daldry’s straightforward approach is expected. It’s funny, then, that everything about “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is aggressively negative: Its lack of ambition, its condescending attitude and its unpleasantness. The last trait is astounding since the movie includes Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, two actors whose universal appeal is practically a Constitutional amendment.
The actor getting the limelight here is 14-year-old newcomer Thomas Horn. He plays Oskar Schell, an 11 year old who enjoys a special relationship with his father (Hanks). The old man creates elaborate hunts — or “reconnaissance expeditions” — for his shy, awkward son. As part of their twee rapport, the fellas also commiserate over maps in quaint sweet shops and stage oxymoron battles. Mom (Bullock) wisely stays in the background.
Then Oskar’s dad dies in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks. A year passes. Oskar’s memories start to fade, causing him to venture into dad’s bedroom closet where a vase tumbles from a shelf. That destructive trip leads to a series of clues that convinces Oskar that his father wants him to find something. Equipped with a bizarre organizational system inspired by a John Hodgman diagram, the neurotic Oskar treks all over New York in search of a big clue: Someone named “Black.”
Daldry stages the action like a regular drama. Big mistake. The world Oskar occupies needs to be bigger, wackier — something so we aren’t constantly confronted with the burden of reality. “Super 8” and “Hugo” succeeded because the films looked like storybooks. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” has the visual allure of a “Seinfeld” episode. We never buy anything that happens. Magic never blooms. Instead, we keep waiting for Child Services — or anyone with a muzzle — to appear.
Oskar, an eloquently verbose and tortured soul governed by his own pretzel logic, cannot exist under the enchanting spell of realism. Clever and plucky, he’s also an impatient brat who, when not talking like a haughty boy robot, blurts out his fears. We would only get behind Oskar if we could push him off a cliff. Horn delivers a corrosive performance, but I don’t think he has much choice. Oskar, who admits that he was tested for Asperger’s, is clearly a mess. He’s fatherless, pinches himself to the point of bruising and treats his elders like peons. But why can’t someone — Daldry, screenwriter Eric Roth (who penned freakin’ “Forrest Gump”) — make the kid tolerable?
Hanks and Bullock come and go, though in the film’s final stretch Bullock’s character proves that she’s a good mother. The takeaway message: Indulge your kid’s behavior no matter how dangerous or misguided. After all, kids are people who need to grieve in their own way. It’s at this point when the value of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” emerges. Daldry and Roth unintentionally reveal the nation’s true threat. It’s not fear and uncertainty. It is the current generation of coddled, bratty, flash card-trained little monsters who never hear “no.”
Rating: W
Read more of Pete’s cinematic musings on whatpeteswatching.blogspot.com or follow @PeteCroatto.
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