This is a movie made up of voices, and one voice rises above all the others. In director Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” it is the extraordinary voice of 11-year-old Oskar Schell (newcomer Thomas Horn), who is basically talking nonstop for about 75 percent of the movie. But it is when Oskar starts to pause, allowing knowing silence and other voices to rush in to fill the gaps, that “Loud” gains its real footing.
Oskar is a young genius who apparently suffers either from autism or Asperger’s and survives through the creative and humorous devices of his father Thomas (an avuncular Tom Hanks) as the two transform New York into uncharted territory for the explorer in Oskar.
But when Thomas dies during 9/11, Oskar struggles to deal with the tragedy together with his distant mother (a somber Sandra Bullock). One year later, Oskar discovers a key in his dad’s things in an envelope marked “Black.” To somehow keep close to his dad’s memory, Oskar attempts to overcome his fear and embarks on a quest to talk to every person named Black in New York.
“I started with a simple problem, a key with no lock, and I designed a system I thought fit the problem,” Oskar says. “I broke everything down in the smallest parts and tried to think of each person as a number in a gigantic equation.”
His trips, kept secret from his mother, prove to be a formidable challenge and Oskar is soon joined by an elderly man (Max von Sydow) who rents a room from Oskar’s grandmother—thus he is called “The Renter”—who cannot speak and communicates only by scribbling in his notebooks. Their explorations bring Oskar to new places but finding out what the key is for seems impossibly out of reach. “I wasn’t getting closer to my dad,” Oskar despairs. “I was losing him.”
Polish and profundity
Based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 best-selling novel, “Loud” is Daldry’s first film since 2008’s critically acclaimed “The Reader,” and this one has his trademark polish and profundity. Even though Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth (who adapted “Forrest Gump”) have apparently jettisoned a sizable chunk of Foer’s novel to fit it into just a little over two hours, this still might be the talkiest movie you have ever seen—and that’s not a bad thing.
All the moving parts may seem too loose, but once the movie’s three big twists are revealed, the parts come together quickly towards a tear-jerking if somewhat overly fine-tuned conclusion. Something of an ode to New York and a study of the various faces of grief, the movie tries really hard to make you cry—as well as laugh a bit.
“Loud” is anchored on solid performances by Hanks, Bullock and an ensemble that includes Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright. Von Sydow, who is nominated for an Oscar for the role, is magnificently subtle as The Renter, able to communicate complex emotions with only his eyebrows.
But your mileage with “Loud” will depend almost entirely on whether or not you like the kid. The precocious Oskar required a similarly precocious actor and Thomas Horn—who famously was a contestant on the kids’ edition of “Jeopardy!”—must have the most lines for a child actor in movie history.
Horn sells it really well. His Oskar reminds one of a younger, slightly broken Sheldon Cooper from TV’s “The Big Bang Theory” and is able to speak his complicated lines with confidence even as he remains vulnerable to pretty much anything.
You could easily wind up hating and loving him. With his bruising and delicate work, Horn follows the tradition of Daldry’s wunderkind discoveries, David Kross in “The Reader” and Jamie Bell in “Billy Elliot.” It’s a star-making performance.
With those sterling turns, all the cinematic puzzles pieces in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” fit together gracefully, as Stephen Daldry gifts us with an intelligent epic of coping and remembering the things we’ve lost and the things we miss the most.
Warner Bros.’ “Extremely Loud & Extremely Close” opens in Metro Manila theaters on Feb. 29.