Warner Brothers asked if we would like to review Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I was a bit unsure about watching a film connected to 9/11 but was intrigued by the stellar cast and director.
Adapted from the acclaimed bestseller by Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell, an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open.
A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. Now, as Oskar crosses the five New York boroughs in quest of the missing lock – encountering an eclectic assortment of people who are each survivors in their own way – he begins to uncover unseen links to the father he misses, to the mother who seems so far away from him and to the whole noisy, dangerous, discombobulating world around him.
We really enjoyed the film which surprised us both. There were a lot of sad and poignant moments, as you would expect from a film dealing with a bereaved child and a society coping with a post 9/11 New York. However, there were also many laugh out loud moments and I felt a bit guilty laughing at these. However the film is about the journey of a family torn apart and how they come back together again.
At some points I found myself querying the likelihood of some of the story. I began to wonder how the inhabitants of New York could be so charitable to an awkward child turning up unannounced or how a mother could let her child go out for days on end without a legitimate explanation. However the end of the film answered all my questions. This was a really enjoyable film which I would thoroughly recommend.
