Movie Review – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I am not a professional movie reviewer. Hence the very infrequent movie reviews. But whenever I feel that all my friends should see a particular movie without fail, I sit down to write. No matter when the movie is released, I feel strongly that some movies should never be missed.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close(here I take the liberty to abbreviate it to ELIC since I wouldn’t want to type the name again and again), is one such movie which I saw recently. It’s a story of a young boy who loses his father in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The movie starts with a very brief sequence of the thoughts of the boy, where he is confused about life after death and has a very interesting hypothesis about how it should be.

The story reveals a very special bond the boy had with his father. After the death of his father, the boy finds a key in a small envelope in his father’s closet. The envelope has word “BLACK” written on one corner and assuming it to be the name of an individual, the boys goes out in search of such person named Black, and a lock which the key opens. The boy is under the impression that it is some kind of challenge designed by his dad before he was dead, and believes that if the mystery is unraveled, he would be able to extend the moments spent with his father for a longer period of time.

During the course of his search, the boy comes in contact with variety of people, some who are helpful, loving and some quite rude and non co-operative. I would not like to reveal whether he finds the lock, or the person named Black, as the poignant moments of the film would be robbed of their essence. But the boy solves few mysteries along the way, and though it seems that he keeps on drifting apart from his mother, one moment of the film reveals how he actually comes closer to her. And how he manages to get over one big secret which has been eating him out all through this time.

ELIC is a standard 2 hour affair without any elements which would bore you. Though Tom Hanks has a very short role in the movie(he is the father of the boy), his role is very important for the course of events that unfold. Sandra Bullock, the mother, seems to adrift in the world of a mourning widow, oblivious to the what’s happening with her son. But the end of the movie portrays her to be a concerned mother. The boy, , has a major role in this movie, and though quite effective sometimes, his act seems lacking the essence. But the dialogues and the story makes up for that.

All in all, a good movie by my standards and I would rate it to 4/5.