Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)

“If things were easy to find, they wouldn’t be worth finding. ” – Thomas Schell

Number of Times Seen – 2 (7 Feb 2012 and 19 Nov 2015)

Brief Synopsis – A year after his father is killed in the WTC attacks, a young boy goes on a quest to find the meaning of a key his father left him.

My Take on it – I have never read the book that this movie is based on but I really like the wya that this movie was presented to us.

The narration works so well and they chose a great young actor to portray the lead. Thomas Horn really carries this movie pretty much all by himself.

The story is great because it’s able to encompass so many things all at once; love, loss and the yearning for some kind of message in life.

Max Von Sydow was an excellent choice as the mute “renter” who is able to do so much even without the power of speech.  He probably should have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year instead of Christopher Plummer (who was also great in Beginners (2011), but not as good as Von Sydow IMHO).

The one thing that I wasn;t too happy about was the cats of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock as The parents.  They are both amazingly talented actors, but it felt too much like they were cast in order to be used as Oscar bait instead of choosing lesser known actors in those roles which might have made the impact even stronger.

Bottom Line -Very moving story about love, loss and the quest for something more in life.  The narration works excellently here and I liked the choice of Horn as the protagonist. Von Sydow is great as the mute “renter” and despite not saying a word, we understand his character so well. Haven’t read the book, but I really enjoyed the way this was presented on screen for us.  I think that having Hanks and Bullock as the parents was pure Oscar bait and it might have been even better with lesser known actors in those roles. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – At age 82, Max von Sydow was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this film, becoming the second oldest man to be nominated for a male acting Oscar. von Sydow was aged 82 years & 289 days whereas the record holder was Hal Holbrook aged 82 years & 339 days nominated in the same category for Into the Wild (2007), beating him by just 50 days.(From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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