Of the nine Academy Award nominees for Best Picture this year, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a shocking addition. At the same time, if there were ever an award for The Most Appropriately Titled Movie, this would certainly be it, for Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is extremely loud and ever-so-close for far too much of the movie.
In truth, there are moments when we feel for Oskar, particularly when he laments the loss of his father, analogizing it to the remaining time we would have to soak in sunlight after the sun ceased to exist, noting, “I could feel my eight minutes with him were running out.” And for this, we are sad, and not solely because his father, Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks) was lost in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, but also because his father seemed like a genuinely encouraging, loving, best-father-ever type of guy – even if, throughout the film, it seems a few boundaries around Oskar would have been beneficial. We’re also touched by Linda Schell (Sandra Bullock), his wife whose last exchange is on static-filled cellphone as she watches the smoldering towers from her office window.
However, there are two main issues I encounter while watching this film. The first is the recurring images of “the Worst Day,” Oskar’s oft-repeated phrase that is meant to establish his inability to find closure, but eventually becomes an obnoxious sound bite. From the opening credits, silhouettes of bodies tumble through the sky; later on, Oskar has a dream about his father’s body plummeting to the ground; at one point, he produces computer-printed photos of falling bodies, some so pixelated that he convinces himself that he sees Thomas; flocks of birds fly briskly overhead as a visual signifier of the myriad papers that accompanied the bodies that attempted to defy gravity on that Worst Day; the presence of televisions in various scenes are ripe opportunities for director Stephen Daldry to include a shot of the towers, or a note about the impending threats of terrorism. Therefore, we are unable to escape the very day that Oskar fears, and while this could be seen as a manner to convey the tense, paranoid lives that we lead after the towers fell, it often feels more like a trick to create a deep sense of connection where there really isn’t one.
Throughout Extremely Loud, I felt myself disconnected from Oskar, but more affected by the visual triggers that remind us of our knowledge of subsequent tragedy: namely, the crashing down of the towers. If Linda were on the phone with Thomas as he’s caught in a building on October 15th, for which we have no historical reference, would we tear up as she begs him to “come home now” or “don’t hang up”? More than likely, no, because his death has little to no context and, more importantly, it’s uncertain; it is because we are familiar and have been bombarded with similar images of the tragedy over the last decade, and we are aware of the trajectory on which this country and our world has gone because of this date that we have an emotional reaction. The film itself does not give us enough to really care about any of the characters, and, truthfully, the character we are exposed to most is the least likable.
It’s clear from the start that Oskar is an anxious introvert who constantly doubts himself, so the constant recurrence of the nasally “can’t” gets old rather quickly in a two-hour-plus movie. It’s as if telling us he can’t, only to watch him immediately do what he said he couldn’t, is supposed to create a feeling of small victory inside for all of those obstacles we’ve had to climb over or chosen to walk around … but it doesn’t. In fact, it does the opposite. The “can’t”s are more whiney than anything else, so by the end, we’re really just wanting to push the kid forward. Admittedly, a boy with a fear of heights would be apprehensive crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, but after two or three shakes of a tambourine and a flashing memory of his father, Oskar sprints across the bridge screaming “Fort Greene! Fort Greene!” At first, this comes across as quite the triumph, but it’s futile: shortly after, he balks at walking along a footbridge that rests two feet above shallow water. In short, he climbed a mountain, but won’t scale a mole hill. But again, with each apprehension, we hear a form of classical music or see a shot of the Worst Day as if we are to be constantly reminded that this day could be our last. We get it. There was a tragedy. We’re aware of it. Now, what?
Oskar is also an arrogant, egotistical, condescending kid. It would be one thing if these characteristics began to emerge after the Worst Day, thus signaling some sort of coping mechanism or symptom or trauma reaction. However, this isn’t the case. Extremely Loud flashes us back and forth through time, giving us clips of Thomas’ life and his interaction with both Linda and Oskar; Oskar is always a kind of stubborn, whiney little brat. And, overall, this is a detriment to the movie inasmuch as his constant bitching and condescension make a presumably intentionally emotion scene toward the end of the second act no more than a temper tantrum set to classical piano. Gary Buckman’s (Juaquin Phoenix) decision to smash his father’s dental office with a hammer in 1989’s Parenthood or Mia’s (Kate Jarvis) urinating on Connor’s (Michael Fassbender) living room rug in Fish Tank evoke an empathetic anger and frustration, whereas Oskar’s frantic, door-slamming search through empty lockboxes and his scattering of a thousand keys on the ground makes me want to hand him a broom and dustpan as opposed to tearing up or placing a compassionate hand on his shoulder.
The Renter (Max Von Sydow) is often there on Oskar’s journey to offer this comforting hand – which is appropriate since he doesn’t speak and communicates with either the “yes” or “no” tattooed on opposite hands or with the notepad and Sharpie that he carries around. Of the performances in Extremely Loud, Sydow’s is the strongest, primarily because it is silent (a welcome respite from Oskar), so everything he wants to say is reduced to a “yes,” “no,” or whatever can fit on a three-by-five sheet of paper. And, at times, the silent frustration welling behind his eyes mirrors that of the audience, but, like him, we stay silent, waiting to escape.
Ultimately, the movie boils down to the message that suffering is universal, a valuable lesson, but a rather simple theme propped up by repeat imagery of a day that none of us in the audience have fully forgotten, and one that is overly exposited throughout this film, repeatedly via montages relayed in a chalk-board-scraping squeal that follows Oskar’s, ironically, oft-asked “Can I tell you my story? I have to tell someone.” I wish I could tell him “no,” but I fear he wouldn’t listen anyway.
