At this point, I'm considering that TYCP project a wash. They have a big old stack of reviews from me and haven't posted one since Haywire came out. Since I'm overwhelmed with music work on this, the week where the show I've been working on has its entire run, I'm posting some of those reviews.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a drama about coping with catastrophic loss. Namely, a boy losing his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But Oskar Schell isn’t just an ordinary boy. He has undiagnosed mental health issues that cause him extreme anxiety around people. His father used to set up expeditions for Oskar that forced him to interact with people in NYC. A year after the death, Oskar finds a key in an envelope and is convinced his father wanted him to find the lock it goes to.
You cannot fault Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close for its ambition. Director Stephen Daldry films Oskar's world with such style that every corner in NYC looks brand new and exciting. He travels all over the five boroughs from the perspective of a child, always looking up at the immense buildings and the sea of people filling the sidewalks and subways.
The problem is that this style does not work for all the stories contained in the film. For every scene that is so powerful you'll want to stand up and cheer, there's another scene that is so dull, lifeless, and manipulative that you'll want to walk out of the theater. The tone is horribly inconsistent. Whenever the film tries to comment on Oskar's condition or the motivation for his quest, it stumbles.
The most accomplished scenes in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close are the events of September 11, 2001, where we see Oskar or his mother (but never his father) reacting to the attack. Daldry manages to find a rhythm and intensity to these scenes that feels real. They do not feel exploitative or manipulative. Even when the content is shocking, like a recurring motif of a man jumping from the towers, it feels right and justified by Oskar's story.
The problem is that the narrative thrust of the film--Oskar's search for the key's lock--doesn't hold up on its own. Where another screenplay would have played up the adventure elements and character, Eric Roth's adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel constantly retreats into the safety of Oskar's neuroses. This means that characters outside of his immediate family become two dimensional plot points on his quest.
Any emotion you're supposed to feel from Oskar's interactions with his grandmother's tenant, for example, doesn't come across at all because the man has no character. Max von Sydow is compelling only because he's Max von Sydow. You cannot divorce his early scenes from an overly foreshadowed twist that is obvious from his first appearance. The same applies to all recurring non-immediate family characters. Stephen Daldry wastes a large and talented ensemble cast, including Viola Davis, Zoe Caldwell, and John Goodman, because he gives them no direction beyond "say your lines and cry here."
The problem is that Daldry did not know what he wanted to get out of this film. It's a lackluster adventure, a strange character study with no growth, a coming of age story, a tight family drama, and an emotionally resonant tribute to 9/11. Together, these elements overpower each other and underwhelm as a cohesive film.
All of that is a shame. Edited down to the key plot points and visual motifs, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close would be a masterpiece. The sound design, cinematography, score, and captivating debut performance from young Thomas Horn are almost enough to make this film work. There's enough good in the film to make it worth watching, but not enough to make it as great as it should have been.
Rating: 5/10
And yes, there's a whole other post that I slapped a rating on. I just wanted the traffic from LAMB.