This is the (almost impossibly) dark horse in the Oscar race for Best Picture this year. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has had its ups and downs in terms of buzz and critical response, and many thought it would slip through awards season under the radar, as it had until the Academy Award announced its 2012 nominations just a few weeks ago. Since then, the film has enjoyed an uptick in people talking about it (of course, the talk has hardly been all flattering), mostly wondering how in the world it made the list of the nine best films of this year.
And now having seen it, I can tell you (with authority I've awarded to myself) that it made that list because it is one of the better movies of this year. It is well-crafted and genuinely heartfelt, and the performances by everyone involved are superb. Of course, it would appear that the majority of moviegoers over at Rotten Tomatoes disagree with me, but I'd like to make the case for disregarding their opinions. This film is easy to fall into and enjoy immensely, there are simply a few things you need to keep in mind, things that the critics have been too quick on the draw to point to as reasons for the film's failure.
First, the film is not about 9/11. That might sound strange, and I'll clarify: it's not about 9/11 in the way you're expecting (and the way some of the ads have made it look). Yes, they address the attacks and their impact, but from a singular perspective (Oskar and his family's), and the event itself is an impetus for the real story, rather than the story itself. The real story here is one about the things and people we lose on our journey through life, and the sometimes difficult-to-see threads which tie us to one another. It's a story about how everyone has a story, even one you might not anticipate on first meeting them, and that those stories can help us understand and co-exist with each other more than just about anything else.
Second, the film is not about autism. Yes, the possibility of Oskar suffering from something on the autism spectrum (and I'd like to be clear that it is never confirmed, in the film nor the book, that he does) is an interesting facet of his character, and one the film chooses to highlight and make accessible rather than making it into a "there's something wrong with the kid" type of film. However, I think Oskar can be read in a variety of ways, and the more important takeaway is how trauma can worm itself into our lives (this is showcased brilliantly in the differences between Oskar and "the renter", both traumatized by past events and both coping with it in unusual ways) and really impact who we are and how we interact with the world. Oskar might have been any other child, a little bit quirky and socially inept but earnest, but it is the terrible thing he has experienced that exacerbates his stranger tendencies and drives his obsession with establishing a connection to his deceased father.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the viewer (most particularly those who've read the novel upon which the film is based) must bear in mind that while this might seem an imperfect adaptation, it really is doing the best it can. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a very complicated novel with (in typical Safran Foer fashion) numerous threads running through its narrative, connecting characters through space and time in unexpected ways. A film adaptation was never going to successfully capture the novel's scope verbatim; rather, it sought (and in my opinion, succeeded) to serve as an interpretation of the book's essence, of painting its message with broad strokes rather than scrambling to include details. Of course, it would have been great if we'd gotten the more fully-realized back story on the renter that the book provides, and yeah, it would have been cool to see even more of Oskar's various travels, but that might have taken away from the film's tone, and its expression of something really pure and human about the way we deal with our ties to other people, and the loss of those connections.
Just about every actor in this movie turns in a phenomenal performance. Thomas Horn carries the admittedly difficult role of Oskar with visible dedication and passion (though his over-eager narration can be a bit much at times), Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks are wonderful as his parents, and Max von Sydow gives the best silent performance not featured in The Artist of the year (his surprise nomination for Best Supporting Actor makes sense after just a few minutes of screen time). Additionally, and on the unfortunate side, this film gives us the second moving, remarkable musical score for which Alexandre Desplat has not been awarded or even nominated (the first, of course, is last summer's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2). In my book there are few composers who really give voice to a film the way Desplat does, and it's about time he started earning more recognition for his work.
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