Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close arrives in theatres this holiday season as the second major literary offering following David Fincher’s take on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While the later appeals to the crowd that like their films a bit more on the dark side, director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) has crafted a bestseller adaptation for those looking for something equal parts uplifting and melancholic. A massive step forward for Daldry following his last big screen outing (the inexplicably lauded, maudlin, and heavy handed The Reader), the film explores a worldwide tragedy on an extremely human level where the macrocosm of 9/11 becomes one of the most quixotic journeys in recent cinema.
A gifted and talented boy with a potential touch of Asperger’s and a laundry list of neuroses named Oskar (Thomas Horn) finds his creative voice through spending time with his beloved father (Tom Hanks). Slowly and tastefully the film builds up to the tragic day where Oskar loses the one person who genuinely understood him in one of the greatest tragedies in US history. One year later, Oskar feels that the memory of his father is slipping away from him, and his previously absentee mother (Sandra Bullock) is hardly in any condition to help her son with his grief.
After sneaking into his father’s old closet, the young boy discovers a mysterious key in an envelope. Believing the key is a clue to another one of the exploration missions his father used to send him on, Oskar travels in and out of the lives of people in the city, including that of a mysterious, mute boarder (Max Von Sydow) living in his grandmother’s apartment across the street.
Daldry takes this much heralded and beloved story and does interesting and affecting things with the book’s broad subject matter. In his hands, Foer’s book takes on the brightly coloured look of a modern day fairy tale. This is a story of a young man desperately trying to hang on to the fading memory of his father as he comes to the crossroads of being a young adult. It’s an easy subject to explore on the page, but something trickier to pull off on screen.
Daldry is helped beautifully by the brilliant work of young Thomas Horn in the lead. While slight points can be deducted for some overly loquacious dialog and a hairstyle that at times distressingly harkens the hero back to Daldry’s previous leading lad, Jamie Bell, Horn delivers a devastating performance as a boy with a heart full of endless hope and wonder that is being put to the ultimate test. With every setback Oskar encounters in his journey, Horn puts the neurotic tics of the character to great use. Horn and Daldry are most assuredly going for the heart and mind at the same time with this one, but their partnership never feels exploitative or manipulative.
The supporting cast wisely gives Horn the spotlight, as the heavy hitters wisely fade into the background. Hanks delivers typically strong work in the beginning and flashback sequences as the father always trying to get young Oskar to come out of his shell. Bullock shows surprising range as the mother learning how to actually raise her child for the first time. She should have been nominated for this film instead of The Blind Side because even though a late film twist doesn’t quite add up, Bullock still has more interesting material to play off of in this one. The performance most people will probably remember come Oscar season, however, is that of Von Sydow who exudes equal parts pride and remorse without ever uttering a single word.
Fans of the book should be more than pleased with an adaptation of a book many thought to be unfilmable. The performances and Daldry’s keen visual eye will surely find favour outside of fans of the book. It’s the rare tearjerker one doesn’t feel bad about crying when they watch it. It’s mass market, feel good entertainment done right. It will make people want to rush home and hug the ones they love as tight as humanly possible.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close opens on Christmas Day in limited release.
Rating: 
Rated PG
Cast: Tom Hanks, Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock
Directed by: Stephen Daldry
Top image: A scene from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Courtesy Warner Bros.
