Overrated

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

This is one of the better films that extrapolates from that horrible day on September 11, 2001 in a moving fictional story. Although sentimental in tone, it is difficult not to admire the stellar cast and the clever plotting of the film.The principal conceit of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is the process of a search that is foreshadowed at the start of the film of the young Oskar Schell taking the challenge of his dad to search for a non-existent sixth borough of New York. That search transitions into a search for the missing box that will be unlocked from a key left by the father prior to his death on 9/11.The little kid who plays the role of Oskar was described in the DVD bonus segment as a child genius who learned Mandarin and won a bundle on the television show Jeopardy, prior to being recruited for the film. The mantra of Oskar is "never stop looking"--words that were circled on a newspaper clipping left behind by the father.My favorite character in the film was the Renter, an elderly man from the old country who befriends Oskar and helps him on his quest. Max Von Sydow was terrific in the role of the "silent" character, whose past life is never revealed in the film. Could the Renter be the father of the dad, whose name appears on the logo of the family jewelry business, Schell & Son Jewelers?SPOILER ALERT: The mother character, played effectively by Sandra Bullock, loved the son so much that she was shadowing his every move in the long search through the boroughs of New York for the missing lock. She met with the various Black members on the son's checklist, preparing the people for his visit. Unfortunately, this moving part of the story led to a major plot hole, as the couple who owned the vase and ran the estate sale should have been alerted to the importance of the key by the mother's visit, prior to the arrival of the son. There were other instances where the film stretched credibility. It tended to venture into the area of the supernatural, just falling short of a film like "The Sixth Sense" in the improbable search of young Oscar and the connection of sixth borough plot with the lock-and-key. It was almost as if the Renter could have been a figment of Oskar's vivid imagination. At some point, the filmmakers had the obligation to have everything make sense in such a realistic film.

A breathtaking story remarkably recreated by the cast. The memorial day on 11th of September seen through the eyes of a kid. An unusual child who is trying to get to the mystery left by his father or maybe everything is in his imagination. One journey in the big city of New York which completely absorbs you and you wait for every next step of frantic interest.

I'm not quite sure how to review Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close". It focuses on a number of different things at once: 9/11, Asperger's syndrome, and a quest for an answer. I understand that several reviewers found the movie exploitative in how it focused on the first two. I didn't see it that way. I guess that the gist of the movie is that sooner or later, we all must realize that it's a harsh world out there. In the protagonist's case, it took the 21st century's most famous - or infamous - event to make him realize that. As his mother reminds him, we can't always explain why these things happen.* As to the issue of whether the movie deserved its Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, I don't think that I would've nominated it. Of course, I haven't seen as many 2011 releases as I would've liked to, so I don't know what I would've nominated in its place. In the end, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and the rest turn in fine performances, so that saves the movie more than anything.*There have in fact been countless explanations as to why Osama bin Laden directed his followers to hijack the planes, but it would take too long to discuss here.

Although there was no such thing as an actual Thomas Schell who died that day, it really shows the reality of how it shatters peoples lives. With Thomas Horn playing as a boy with high functioning autism, it is a HUGE struggle to get though life even more, especially losing your father in a terror attack. That didn't stop him to look for where that key was belonged to and honestly, people like myself who have this condition are misunderstood of the way we behave towards others. Oscar really is a good role model for anyone who has this condition.Good man Jonathan Safran Foer for creating this book and of course, make it recognised as a film we know today. RIP to those who lost their lives on that faithful day <3