Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Starring: Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, Max Von Sydow
Director: Stephen Daldry
Rating: 1/5

There are very definite trends to what the Oscar panel likes. Adaptations of books? Yep. Precocious youngsters struggling to make sense of the world? Certainly. Sandra Bullock crying and damaged characters with a whole load of quirk all set across the backdrop of a social disaster? Yes, yes and yes again.

So it comes as no surprise that this week see the release of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, fresh from its Oscar nomination, packing every single one of these into a pretty awful package.

In Extremely Loud, we follow Oskar (Thomas Horn), an exceedingly bright young boy who has his world rocked after his father’s death on September 11th.

After finding a mysterious key inside his father's closet only marked 'Black', Oskar sets out on a journey to find where the key fits, believing that it will bring him closer to his late father (Tom Hanks).

He eventually brings in a mute man (Max Von Sydow) who lives with his grandmother to help him on his quest across the five burrows of New York to find the lock the key fits, overcoming his social inabilities and many fears along the way.

While Daldry's previous work in Billy Elliot proved uplifting, Extremely Loud is just headache-inducingly infuriating. All starting with Oskar himself.

Oskar has a list of complexes and phobias so large it’s a wonder he can even function at all. By the time he brings out his business cards and keep-calm tambourine, you’re just about ready to throw the towel in. That he continually acts like a selfish, petulant, brat makes him possibly the worst kid in this year of films.

The supporting cast aren’t much better. Oskar’s eulogised late father comes across as nothing more than a fountain of eccentricity while Sandra Bullock’s mother does nothing but spew emotion at convenient times and Max Von Sydow’s silent ‘Renter’ gimmick wears out fast.

The film doesn’t stop annoying there though. This is a film that wants to make you cry. Permanently. For its entire running time, Extremely Loud pokes the audience with the teary stick constantly, without even bothering to stop and wonder why.

Every conversation is done in the most predictably over-sentimental way possible, all set to plodding, melodramatic music that even John Williams would call too much.

Weighed down by an absolute turkey of a script, Extremely Loud may have set out to be an emotional roller coaster, but just ends up showing that two hours of contrived emotional bombardment doesn’t make a film.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is out now.

FemaleFirst Cameron Smith

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