Precocious kids and feel good is a dangerous combination for me. It combines annoyance with didactic sentimentality that makes me twitch and shut it off when watching a movie. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. The story is about a boy and his father who dies on 9/11 and his son discovers a key his father left and searches New York City to find out what it locks. The boy is described as having a gift for seeking out objects from the twentieth century, which doesn't seem that hard, since we're only ten years in the new one. He isn't a real nine-year old, but one of those gifted children that come from another planet giving words of wisdom which adults too clueless pray at their feet for knowledge.
I was already annoyed at this trailer introducing the kid, but the added saccharine of 9/11 gives it a false importance, and more important, feels dated. We've moved away from that event far enough to put together more sophisticated interpretations of what it means to us. The loss of family is a given.
Another surprise is the talent invested in this, with Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, and Lydia Davis roped in. This type of macro style (Crash) is, fortunately, fading out and adds to this movie's outdatedness. I wonder if it was in development hell for a long time. Extremely wasted and incredibly bad.
Opening December 25, 2011, Verdict: Skip
